A viral video recently caught my attention because it discussed something that, if true, would be absolutely disgusting. The woman in the video was reacting to allegations circulating online that restaurant workers were supposedly talking in a Facebook group about mistreating Black customers, including claims about spitting in or contaminating their food. When you hear something like that, especially considering America’s very real history with racism, it’s easy to become angry immediately. Nobody wants to sit down at a restaurant wondering whether somebody is secretly doing something to their food simply because of the color of their skin.
The video gained enormous attention online, and that’s exactly why I believe we have to talk about what happened next. Reports identified the woman discussing the allegations as TikTok creator Sannie Yeanay, and her reaction helped bring tremendous attention to the story. The allegations became connected online with restaurant employees and names including Texas Roadhouse and Logan’s Roadhouse. People were understandably outraged, and the story quickly became another example being shared as evidence of how terrible racism can still be in this country.
But at Kingdom Influence Media, there is something more important to us than simply getting people angry: getting the facts. When we started looking deeper into this story, the situation became much more complicated. Texas Roadhouse publicly responded to the controversy and said that after investigating the allegations, it found no credible evidence that food tampering had actually occurred. The company said its investigation indicated that the original claims circulating online were part of an online hoax. That is an extremely important part of this story because millions of people can see an allegation long before they ever see the correction.
This doesn’t mean racism isn’t real. Racism is very real, and discrimination deserves to be exposed whenever there is credible evidence supporting it. However, false accusations of racism can also cause tremendous damage. When we automatically accept every viral allegation because it confirms something we already believe about society, we can end up accusing innocent people, employees or businesses of horrible things they may never have done. Even worse, false stories can make people more skeptical when genuine victims of racism come forward with legitimate evidence.
That’s one of the problems we have with social media today. Somebody can make a post, another person creates a video about it, thousands of people share the video, and suddenly an allegation becomes a “fact” simply because everybody has heard about it. By the time somebody investigates what actually happened, the original story may already have millions of views. The correction rarely travels as far as the accusation.
I believe we have become terrible about this when it comes to racism. We sometimes become so divided and emotionally charged that we stop asking the most basic question: What are the facts? Being against racism doesn’t require us to believe everything posted on the internet. In fact, if we genuinely care about fighting racism, we should want allegations to be investigated carefully because credible evidence makes legitimate cases stronger.
That’s why I wanted to highlight this viral video while also telling everyone what was discovered afterward. Watch the video, listen to what was originally alleged, but then look at the information that came afterward before reaching your conclusion. The viral video is part of the story, but it isn’t the entire story.
Kingdom Influence Media isn’t interested in simply jumping onto a viral story because everybody else is talking about it. If something is racist, expose it. If someone has been mistreated, give them a voice. But if information turns out to be misleading, unverified or false, we should be willing to say that too. Facts have to matter more than clicks, outrage or which side of an argument the truth happens to support.
We can fight racism while also fighting misinformation. Those two things do not contradict each other. If anything, they belong together. When something this serious goes viral, investigate it, question it, discuss it and demand evidence. That’s how we make sure the people who genuinely experience racism are heard while innocent people aren’t condemned because of something that simply went viral online.
What do you think? Did you see the original viral video? Did you believe the allegations when you first heard them, and do you think social media does enough to correct stories after new facts come out?
