• Burger King New Zealand posted an ad showing diners struggling to eat its new Vietnamese Sweet Chili chicken sandwiches with giant red chopsticks.
• Social media users called the ad offensive, prompting the company to remove the ad and issue an apology. 

The Advertisement

Burger King New Zealand has removed a controversial new advertisement that was criticized as culturally insensitive on social media.

The fast-food chain released an ad for their new Vietnamese Sweet Chili Tendercrisp chicken sandwich, which featured customers attempting to eat the food with giant chopsticks.

An Instagram post with the ad also included a caption that read, “Take your taste buds all the way to Ho Chi Minh City with our Vietnamese Sweet Chili Tendercrisp, part of our Tastes of the World range. Available for a limited time only.”

A New Zealander of Korean descent, Maria Mo, took issue with the ad and tweeted out a screen recording of the clip along with a sarcastic note. “OK, coolcoolcool, chopsticks r HILARIOUS right omg etc,” she wrote.

In a message to HuffPost, Mo explained why she decided to call out Burger King for the ad saying, “Because I couldn’t believe such blatantly ignorant ads are still happening in 2019, it honestly took me a second to work out what the heck I was looking at.”

“[People of color] are constantly having to deal with microaggressions as well as outright hatred and it just never ends,” she added.

Backlash

Mo’s post has pulled in nearly 3 million views as of Tuesday morning and prompted others to speak out against Burger King

Apology

“The ad in question is insensitive and does not reflect our brand values regarding diversity and inclusion,” the company said in a statement following the backlash. “We have asked our franchisee in New Zealand to remove the ad immediately.”

In an interview with The New Zealand Heral, James Woodbridge, Burger King New Zealand’s general manager of marketing said, “We are truly sorry that the ad has appeared insensitive to our community.”

Defense

Still, not everyone found the ad offensive. In fact, many social media users came to Burger King’s defense and argued that people were overreacting.

It’s not racist. It’s just a joke…with the butt of the joke actually being westerners who are stereotyped as being bad with chopsticks and thinking they should always be used for any oriental food. One person complained and the company removed it. It’s utterly pathetic.

— TheRawGeek (@TheRawGeek) April 9, 2019

I’m Asian and honestly who cares. Why do we have to get sensitive about everything??? I doubt Burger King was trying to be racist when doing this and to me it doesn’t come off racist. It’s funny. Seriously…get over it whoever you are!

— Matthew Tom (@matttom24) April 7, 2019

See what others are saying: (HuffPost) (Fox News) (Time)

• The SEC asked a federal judge to hold Elon Musk in contempt for violating a settlement.
• Musk responded on Twitter by calling the SEC “broken” and claims he did not violate their agreement.

The SEC Claims Musk Violated a Settlement

Tesla CEO Elon Musk called the Security and Exchange Commission “broken” on Twitter after they claimed he violated a previos settlement with a tweet.

On Monday, the SEC asked a federal judge to hold Musk in contempt for breaking a settlement deal. In October 2018, the SEC and Musk reached an agreement that states that Musk must have any social media posts that could contain information that might be materials for shareholders pre-approved before sending.

On February 19, Musk tweeted about Tesla, and followed up with a correction.

The SEC claims these tweets violate that settlement and said in their filing that the information was “inaccurate.”

“Musk did not seek or receive pre-approval prior to publishing this tweet, which was inaccurate and disseminated to over 24 million people,” the file reads. “Musk has thus violated the Court’s Final Judgment by engaging in the very conduct that the pre-approval provision of the Final Judgment was designed to prevent.”

Tesla confirmed that these tweets were not pre-approved, but also claimed that they did not have to be. The information that Musk tweeted was not new, and had been available to the public since the end of January in an earnings call. Because of this, they say Musk did not need approval.

Musk also said on a 60 Minutes interview in December that he does not usually have his tweets pre-approved and that he has no respect for the SEC. He claimed he only followed the rules of their settlement based on his respect for the Justice Department. The SEC referenced this in their filing against him.

Musk Responds on Twitter

On Monday, Musk used Twitter to attack the SEC for their decision. In response to a tweet that included screenshots of Musk giving the correct information on Tesla in a Fourth Quarter earnings call, Musk claims the SEC never read the transcript.

He also reiterated his support for the justice system.

On Tuesday morning, Tesla shares went down three percent in premarket trading.  He responded to an exchange on this matter by calling the SEC ”broken.”

He also responded “exactly” to a meme criticizing the SEC.

Musks Past Issues with the SEC and Future Ramifications

This is not the first time Musk has found himself in trouble with the SEC, specifically for his tweets. The commission previously tried to remove him from Tesla after tweets he sent about shares in August. They accused him of fraud and share price manipulation for making the information public.

They reached a settlement that allowed him to stay on as CEO, but he lost his chairman position. This settlement also created the mandate that his tweets need pre-approval.

Right now, the exact potential consequences of this filing are unclear. A federal judge in New York, U.S. District Judge Alison Nathan, said that Musk has until March 11 to explain why he should not be held in contempt.

According to Urska Velikonja, a professor at Georgetown Univerity Law Center, Musk could face fines up to $1,000 per day between when the court issued the order and when the court rules that he is in compliance.

Rebecca Roiphe, a professor at New York Law School, told the New York Times that this could also be a chance for the SEC to try to oust him from his CEO title again.

See What Others Are Saying: (Forbes) (Business Insider) (New York Times)