An online hoax that falsely suggests McDonald's discriminates against African-American customers is causing a PR headache for the Golden Arches.
Over the weekend, the photograph above circulated widely on the internet. The image shows what looks like an official McDonald's notice in the window of a restaurant, telling customers that blacks will be charged $1.50 extra "as an insurance measure due in part to a recent string of robberies."
Many internet users retweeted the photo, using the words "Seriously McDonald's," to express their disapproval of the burger chain.
In response, McDonald's sent a tweet of its own on Saturday: "That pic is a senseless & ignorant hoax McD's values ALL our customers. Diversity runs deep in our culture on both sides of the counter."
But that clearly wasn't enough to clear things up, because Twitter users continued to send out the picture, with that same message of condemnation: "Seriously McDonald's." Indeed, so many people sent "Seriously McDonald's" Tweets that the phrase became a leading entry on Twitter's trend list.
That led to a second, blunter McTweet, on Sunday: "That Seriously McDonalds picture is a hoax."
The latest pushback effort seems to have helped keep the photo from spreading too much further--but there's no telling how many people out there still think the photo is for real.
This is hardly the only recent barrage of negative publicity for the burger behemoth--some of it more justified. McDonalds CEO Jim Skinner recently was forced to defend the company's renewed use of the Ronald McDonald mascot to appeal to children, after critics said the restaurant's fat-laden burgers and fries endanger kids' health.
It's not clear who created the hoax image. It appears to have first showed up on the popular 4chan message board, and it was posted last year on an anti-McDonald's blog.
But there's no doubt it's fake. As some Twitter users have pointed out, the toll-free number given at the bottom of the sign is actually the number for ... Kentucky Fried Chicken.

Bigred1995;801972 wrote:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/yblog_thelookout/20110613/us_yblog_thelookout/racial-hoax-causes-pr-headache-for-mcdonalds


I don't care who you are, this is funny! Especially the part that the number on the flyer is the number to KFC!

I'm not sure if this has been posted or not. I couldn't find it with the search feature so I'm guessing it hasn't!

I Wear Pants;802118 wrote:You don't want people stupid enough to believe something like that to be your customers anyway.

I Wear Pants;802140 wrote:I was mostly joking.

I Wear Pants;802140 wrote:I was mostly joking.

Heretic;802134 wrote:People stupid enough to believe something like this are the same type of people who will repeatedly buy McD's without thinking about things like nutritional values and whatnot, so I'd say they'd be more than willing to smooth things over, so fatties won't get pissed off and not shovel their Big Macs down one by one.

coyotes22;802143 wrote:He must need to attend my reading class with me. As he clearly could not see the sarcasm in your post. SMH

I Wear Pants;802173 wrote:Because I'm dumb.

BR1986FB;802161 wrote:Racially profile the sh#t out of me but don't you DARE take away my damn Chicken McNuggets!

I Wear Pants;802173 wrote:If I actually thought what I said about not wanting them as customers (as far as a fast food chain goes) then I probably wouldn't be very good in my major, let alone when I graduate and get a dregree/job.

Also, took me a little bit to get your joke about the reading. Because I'm dumb.

Curly J;802185 wrote:People go Ape **** over McNuggets, must be like Crack !!!

O-Trap;802181 wrote:Based on the post in my sig, we already know that.

coyotes22;802187 wrote:Its ok, we understand.

I Wear Pants;802238 wrote:I will never stop telling the truth.

4cards;802256 wrote:...The bullets would be fly'n even more if they would have done this at Popeye's!