After an uproar of social media backlash over what custom messages Coca-Cola permits on its personalized cans, a Fox News Digital investigation into the platform’s moderation rules reveals an inconsistent system.

Testing various words and phrases in the 18-character-or-less requirement, the Coke can customization blocks mainstream religious phrases like “Jesus is Lord” and political slogans like “Make America Great,” while permitting left-wing activism, right-wing group names and even terms associated with child exploitation.

Religious and faith-based expressions seemed to face strict algorithmic suppression compared to secular or alternative viewpoints. Mainstream affirmations like “Jesus is Lord” and “Allah is Lord” are blocked, while anti-theist and secular phrases like “God is Dead” and “Atheist Pride,” alongside religious greetings like “Shalom” and “Buddha Bless,” are allowed.

This message popped up for rejected phrase or words: “The name or phrase you’ve submitted is not permitted. Names and phrases may not be permitted if they belong to a business, organization, celebrity, public figure, school, team or other trademark, are religious or political in nature, or could be considered inappropriate or unsuitable for other reasons.”

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Patriotic or right-leaning slogans like “Make America Great,” along with any specific political leader names and all racial or identity pride phrases (“White Pride,” “Black Pride,” “Black Lives Matter”), are not permitted on personalized Coke cans. However, left-wing political slogans like “Defund the Police” and controversial political groups like the far-right “Proud Boys” are acceptable.

A Fox News Digital investigation found free speech discrepancies on Coca-Cola’s custom can tool.  (Getty Images)

Another political disparity appeared when Fox News Digital found that “Stand with Israel” is allowed, while “Free Palestine” is blocked, highlighting arbitrary geopolitical enforcement.

Though benign religious and political terms are flagged, extreme and harmful phrases like “Pedophile Pride” and “MAP Pride” (Minor-Attracted Person) are permitted by the filter, as of Friday afternoon.

Additionally, basic text loophole tactics — like adding spaces (“P e d o p h i l e”) or numbers (“Wh1t3 Pr1d3”) — bypassed the system’s security rules.

While the online customization tool generates real-time digital previews, Coca-Cola’s site terms state that submitted text may require additional review before an order is physically printed and shipped.

“We created the Share A Coke personalization tool for Coca-Cola fans to celebrate with one another and make connections by creating bottles and cans with special names or phrases on them,” a Coca-Cola spokesperson told Fox News Digital. “We are aware of a technical issue affecting the personalization preview tool and are working to address it.” 

“While we review and take corrective action, we have disabled the preview feature and paused new personalized product orders after becoming aware that it has been used to generate content previews using restricted terms that do not align with our guidelines,” the spokesperson continued. “All personalization orders are subject to moderation review after submission, and we have safeguards in place to prevent the approval and production of cans and bottles featuring religious, political, trademarked, inappropriate, or otherwise restricted terms and phrases. We will continue to enhance this tool based on consumer feedback.”

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This is not the first time Coca-Cola’s automated customization filters have drawn public scrutiny. Previous iterations of the brand’s online customization engine faced similar criticism in 2021 over inconsistent word blocks regarding political, religious and social movement terms.

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Paramount+ subscribers began reporting streaming problems Friday morning, with outage-tracking service Downdetector flagging a spike in user complaints starting around 10:40 a.m. Eastern time, though independent monitoring services showed a mixed picture of the platform’s actual status as the day progressed.

Downdetector posted about the reported disruption on its X account shortly after complaints began climbing, asking affected users how the issue was impacting them and directing them to its website for further details. Paramount has not issued a public statement addressing the specific cause of the reported problems as of Friday afternoon.

What the Monitoring Data Shows

The picture painted by different outage-tracking services has not been entirely consistent throughout the day. StatusGator, a service that tracks Paramount+’s service health by analyzing issue reports, page visits and other signals, indicated the platform might be experiencing or might have recently experienced an outage, even though the company itself had not officially acknowledged any issue as of the service’s most recent check Friday afternoon.

By contrast, UptimeRobot, which conducts automated technical checks of Paramount+’s website infrastructure, reported that its most recent test, run at roughly 3:13 p.m. Eastern time Friday, did not detect any unusual response times or error codes, suggesting that whatever issue prompted the earlier wave of user reports may have already been resolved, or that it was affecting only a subset of users or specific features rather than the platform as a whole.

That kind of discrepancy between different monitoring approaches is not unusual during smaller-scale or intermittent outages. Automated technical checks, which test whether a website or app responds correctly from various global locations, can sometimes fail to detect problems that are limited to specific regions, particular app versions, certain devices, or individual features such as live sports streaming or account sign-in systems, even while a meaningful number of real users continue experiencing genuine disruptions.

What Users Have Reported

Based on patterns commonly logged during past Paramount+ service disruptions, user complaints during outage periods have typically included issues such as apps failing to load, error messages indicating technical problems, difficulty signing into accounts, slow performance, and streams stopping unexpectedly in the middle of playback. One tracking service, IsDown, noted that Paramount+ has experienced three separate incidents over the trailing 90-day period prior to Friday, with those incidents lasting a median of roughly 47 minutes each, suggesting that when disruptions do occur on the platform, they have generally tended to be relatively short-lived.

How to Check if the Problem Is Widespread

For users uncertain whether their own streaming trouble reflects a broader platform issue or a more localized problem, outage-tracking services generally recommend a few basic troubleshooting steps before concluding that Paramount+ itself is down. Trying to access Paramount+ from a different browser, device or network, such as switching from home Wi-Fi to a mobile hotspot, can help determine whether the issue is specific to a user’s own setup. Other recommended steps include disabling any active VPN connection, clearing the device’s DNS cache, and restarting the home router. If the service works properly through one of those alternate methods, the original problem is more likely local to the user’s specific device or network rather than a confirmed, platform-wide Paramount+ outage.

A History of Occasional Disruptions

Paramount+ has experienced periodic service disruptions in the past, consistent with most major streaming platforms that rely on complex, distributed technical infrastructure to deliver content to millions of subscribers simultaneously. Past user reports collected by outage-tracking services have included complaints ranging from apps becoming stuck in a loading state, to live streams cutting out mid-broadcast, to specific content or channels becoming temporarily unavailable, even when the broader platform otherwise appeared to be functioning normally for most users.

A Platform With Growing Sports and Live Programming Demands

Paramount+ has increasingly leaned into live sports programming as a core part of its subscription offering, including coverage of the NFL, UEFA Champions League and Europa League matches, Italy’s Serie A, and college sports including March Madness, content delivered through partnerships tied to the platform’s underlying CBS broadcast infrastructure. That growing reliance on live, real-time streaming, particularly around major sporting events, can place additional strain on a platform’s technical systems compared with on-demand movie and television content, a dynamic that has periodically contributed to service disruptions across the broader streaming industry when live viewership spikes unexpectedly.

What to Do if You’re Experiencing Problems

Users continuing to experience issues with Paramount+ are encouraged to submit their own reports through outage-tracking platforms such as Downdetector, since crowdsourced user reporting remains one of the fastest ways such services detect emerging problems, often well before an official acknowledgment is issued by the company itself. Paramount’s own customer support channels, including its social media accounts, have in the past provided direct assistance to individual users experiencing account-specific or technical problems, typically by requesting additional details through direct message so a representative can investigate the specific issue.

As of Friday afternoon, the scope and current status of the reported Paramount+ disruption remained somewhat unclear, with user reports and independent monitoring services offering a mixed picture of whether the issue was ongoing, already resolved, or limited to a smaller subset of users or specific platform features. Paramount had not issued any official statement addressing the reported problems as of the time of this report. Users experiencing ongoing difficulty are advised to check the platform’s official status page and outage-tracking services for the most current information as the situation continues to develop.