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Social media loves Starbucks—and hates it

Starbucks has more social media fans and friends than any other concept. It also has a lot of enemies: 220 Facebook pages call for boycotting it (and that’s just the ones spelling “boycott Starbucks” correctly).

The boycotts run from the personal—“On December 6th, I was let go from Starbucks…”—to the political—“Send the message to stop supporting drunk driving.” Not sure how the ’Buck supports drunk driving, but head-scratching is the norm in online boycotts. Here are some popular calls to action.

Name: Boycott Starbucks Forever
Gripe: “Howard Schultz betrayed Seattle and the public interest...”
Fact check: A one-time Seattle SuperSonics owner, Schultz sold the NBA team in 2008, and it moved to Oklahoma. Needless to say, you take away a fan’s team, they’re not going to be happy about it.

Name: Boycott Starbucks
Gripe: The claim is that Marines in Iraq asked Starbucks to send them some coffee, and the company turned them down because they don’t support the war.
Fact check: This is a very popular boycott theme. Snopes, the online rumor buster, tracked the false claim to a stateside marine who heard the claim from a friend. The original email that marine circulated in 2004 still finds life on the Internet.

Name: Boycott Starbucks!
Gripe: “This group is to enlighten people about Starbucks’ direct funds to the Israeli army.”
Fact check: This is another very popular theme. Starbucks says the claim is “unequivocally false.”

Name: Starbucks Sucks
Gripe: “Boycott Starbucks coffee, they are not true Americans.”
Fact check: Starbucks is based in Seattle, Washington, and employs many Americans, presumably real ones.

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