Don't Believe This Viral Claim About McDonald's American Flags
British author George Orwell once wrote in part, "Political language is designed to make lies sound truthful" (via Goodreads). Orwell's words seem particularly relevant these days — maybe because it's an election year. Another reason is that people with strong political opinions, along with just about everyone else, are on social-media platforms that aren't always fact-checked. It's difficult for someone browsing Twitter or Facebook to separate fact from fiction — at least not without doing a little extra research. So, we rely on media outlets such as Snopes, which are committed to the daunting task of debunking a constant stream of political lies. After all, like Orwell said, they can sound so true, especially if you want to believe them.
McDonald's is the subject of a lie posted to Twitter by the user @Ron4Trump38, who calls himself Truther Ron R. "McDonald's removes their American flags in support of Antifa & BLM nationwide," Mr. Truther tweeted. It's too bad he doesn't live up to his name.
McDonald's has denounced racism in recent statements
Unfortunately, the false tweet claiming that McDonald's no longer flies the U.S. flag out of support for Black Lives Matter and Antifa, has been retweeted almost 9,000 times. It's also been pasted into Facebook, spreading far and wide enough to get the attention of Snopes and other fact-checking publications.
When Snopes looked at the claim, they found no evidence whatsoever to support it. They went further, saying the claim doesn't even make sense. Black Lives Matter and the Antifa movement are not anti-American and don't have a particular problem with the U.S. flag. Both Snopes and another fact-checker, Politifact, reached out to McDonald's for a comment about the U.S. flag claim. They both got the same answer: "These rumors are not true."
McDonald's also told Politifact, "We do not tolerate inequality, injustice or racism." The fast-food chain, along with Starbucks and several others, recently donated to racial-justice causes and made statements against racism (via Restaurant Business).
The McDonald's tweet was one of several recent online statements that call out restaurant and grocery-store chains falsely for putting Black Lives Matter above the American flag. We won't repeat them here, because studies have shown that lies online spread faster than the truth (via NBC News), and we're not interested in giving them any help.