Plus: Sinclair messages Kimmel’s return to airwaves; we’re heading for a government shutdown.
You’ve doubtless heard of the backlash to Cracker Barrel’s bland, now-retracted logo that omitted its classic “old timer” character. It spurred outrage across social media, became a symbol of the culture war, tanked the stock price and caused an expensive rollback of not only the logo, but also the company’s remodeling campaign.
Now, research shows that about half of that social media outcry was fake.
According to social analytics company PeakMetrics, 44.5% of X posts about the Cracker Barrel logo in the 24 hours after the story broke were bots or could be bots. Among those calling for a boycott of the store, 49% appeared to be fake.
Signs of bot activity include the use of duplicate messages, reposting the same thing over and over or posting nearly round the clock, the Wall Street Journal reported.
Later, authentic accounts — including Senator Marsha Blackburn and even Donald Trump himself — caught onto the backlash. But it appears the apparent groundswell of support that helped elevate it to a national story was, at least in part, fabricated.
“There is an ecosystem of people who are looking for anything to grasp onto,” Molly Dwyer, director of insights at PeakMetrics, told the Journal. “There has been a vibe shift, and I don’t think that companies have quite caught up to it yet.”
Why it matters: There is no easy solution here.
It’s easy to say merely that companies should monitor social media mentions for bots and ignore them when they reach critical mass.
But unfortunately, bot traffic can get stories trending, which can then allow large, authentic accounts to catch wind of and elevate these stories to true crises. At that point, it doesn’t matter if they were buoyed by bots — the stories have breached containment and need to be dealt with.
Unfortunately, there are limited options for companies dealing with this. X declined to comment for the story, so we have no insight into how they’re dealing with bots — a problem Elon Musk has consistently said he’d deal with, but which is obviously still in force. AI has made it even easier to perform these kinds of reputational attacks at scale.
The best advice is to be aware of these bots. Not all activity is authentic — but it will still be your problem to deal with. But when you’re talking to executives, you’ll at least be able to present the full story to leadership.
Editor’s Top Reads:
- Jimmy Kimmel returned to the airwaves of Nexstar and Sinclair after the ABC affiliates pulled the show over Kimmel’s remarks on the killing of Charlie Kirk. Notably, Kimmel did not publicly accede to Sinclair’s demands to make a donation to Kirk’s Turning Point USA foundation. “We take seriously our responsibility as local broadcasters to provide programming that serves the interests of our communities, while also honoring our obligations to air national network programming,” Sinclair said in a statement, while also denying its decision had anything to do with FCC Chairman Brendan Carr’s threat to revoke affiliates’ licenses over the Kimmel remarks. The statements are unlikely to change anyone’s minds over the actions taken by the affiliate networks — either they were standing up for public decency or suppressing legitimate speech in response to government pressure — but it at least signals a return to normal — for now.
- The U.S. government is set to shut down in two days, which could send shockwaves through the entire economy. Both parties appear unwilling to budge, with Democrats holding out for an extension of Affordable Care Act subsidies and Republicans flatly denying the request. Trump has said that if the government is shut down, he will fire more government workers, a threat that so far has not swayed Democrats. At the moment, assume a government shutdown is likely. Prepare your messaging to your audiences about what this will mean for your organization — will funding be delayed? Will some inspections or services your business relies on not be able to move forward? If you supply the government, will you need to furlough workers? Prepare stakeholders now.
- In lighter news, Jewish Action Magazine issued a humorous response after it published an image of the sheet music for “We Wish You a Merry Christmas” alongside its cantorial feature. Rabbi Gil Student, director of Jewish media and publications at the Orthodox Union, said that while he found the mistake “absolutely hilarious,” the editor found it “horrifying.” “We’re all to blame for this mistake,” Student said in a social media video. “(The editor) and I are to blame for not catching it. My mother is to blame for letting me drop music lessons when I was 10 so now I can’t read sheet music,” Student joked, going on to also fault their graphic designer for using clip art rather than “taking it from a pirate Jewish music site like a normal person.” This shows that mistakes, even sensitive ones that involve religion, don’t have to be serious. A little humor can go a long way.
The post The Scoop: Bots and AI propelled Cracker Barrel backlash appeared first on PR Daily.
