Fake news is in the news, as Facebook and Google try to crack down on sites that deliberately mislead people (like voters). One fake news story just led to a dubious call for a boycott of Pepsi by Trump supporters. The CEO of Pepsi, Indra Nooyi, did indeed say she was disappointed in the election results. But Nooyi certainly never said, as the fake story claimed, that Pepsi didn’t want the business of Trump supporters.
Nooyi is the CEO of one of the world’s largest and most successful companies. It should have been obvious to any intelligent news consumer that she would never tell 60 million Trump voters not to buy her company’s products. Pepsi has worked to inform the public that the story is a fake. But Pepsi stockholders and execs are really counting on the fact that boycotters who believe a fake news story aren’t informed enough to know that Pepsi doesn’t just make the cola that bears the company name. The company makes a huge range of products — like Doritos — that ill-informed boycotters will happily eat while they drink their Trump-friendly cokes. A list of just some of Pepsi’s products is below:
- Lays Chips
- Gatorade
- Doritos
- Quaker Oats
- Lipton teas
- Tostitos
- Tropicana
- Aquafina
- Fritos
- Moutain Dew
- Ruffles
- Cheetos
