It’s a depressingly familiar pattern, a carefully framed image, paired with a provocative narrative, travels faster than the truth, especially when it taps into pre-existing grievances about so-called ‘wokeness.’
Another Easter weekend, another round of familiar outrage. This time, the target was Cadbury, accused of bowing to ‘woke’ pressure by supposedly scrubbing the word ‘Easter’ from its chocolate eggs. The claim spread rapidly across social media, fuelled by a predictable blend of indignation and nostalgia.
At the centre of the storm was a viral image. Stacks of chocolate eggs in a supermarket, their packaging seemingly devoid of any reference to Easter. The accompanying caption struck a deliberately emotive tone: Britain, it declared, had celebrated Easter for over 1,400 years, through wars, plagues and monarchs, so why had a cherished tradition suddenly become controversial?
It was, on the surface, a compelling narrative. But it was also entirely false.
Fact-checkers at Full Fact examined the claim and found no evidence that Cadbury had abandoned the word ‘Easter.’ Quite the opposite in fact. The word was still there, just not visible in the viral image.
On several of the products in question, including Twirl and Creme Eggs, ‘Easter’ appears clearly on the top of the box. The social media images, however, showed only the front-facing side, conveniently cropping out the relevant text. Product images for other items, such as the Buttons egg, even include the phrase ‘Happy Easter’ prominently displayed, but again, conveniently omitted from the circulating posts.
A spokesperson for Mondelēz International, the company that owns Cadbury, told Full Fact:
“Cadbury has used the word Easter in our marketing and communications for over 100 years and continue to do so with our new Easter product range. To claim anything otherwise is factually incorrect.”
A separate investigation by Reuters reached the same conclusion. Their own images of the same products confirmed that ‘Happy Easter’ was indeed printed on the packaging, just not from the angle chosen in the viral photo.
It’s a depressingly familiar pattern, a carefully framed image, paired with a provocative narrative, travels faster than the truth, especially when it taps into pre-existing grievances about so-called ‘wokeness.’
As Full Fact puts it, it’s worth asking whether what you’re seeing is genuine before sharing it. Because if a culture war can be ignited by the angle of a chocolate egg box, it’s not tradition that’s under threat, it’s perspective.
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