It’s open season on Keurig.
This weekend saw a littering of smashed machines from the company across social media as fans of Fox News’s Sean Hannity pledged to boycott the brand. The popular coffee-maker manufacturer and several other brands pulled their advertisements from Hannity’s television program in the wake of his defense of Alabama Republican Senate candidate Roy Moore, who has been accused of having romantic or sexual relationships with teenage girls when he was in his 30s.
In the past several months, Hannity has lost at least half a dozen advertisers in the wake of controversial reporting on conspiracy theories and the white-supremacist rally in Charlottesville. But the announcement by Keurig (GMCR) prompted his supporters to pledge a boycott of the company.
#BoycottKeurig was trending on Twitter over the weekend, but there have been some reports that the success of the hashtag and boycott campaign are partly attributable to help from Russian accounts that have previously been linked with efforts to influence American politics. According to a German Marshall Fund tracker, #BoycottKeurig was the number one trending hashtag among 600 Russia-linked accounts they monitor.
Sean Hannity retweeted and thanked many #BoycottKeurig participants over the weekend and promised to give away 500 coffee machines to what is now surely an under-caffeinated fan base.