A long post on social media platforms has claimed that China has ordered the sale of the American beverage brand, Coca-Cola as a "sewage cleaning liquid."
The post also read that the Chinese authorities have withdrawn Coca-Cola from all grocery stores in the country due to "scientific research" on its health effects.
It said that 500 Chinese prisoners were involved in experiments involving the drink, leading to 75 deaths and 150 infections.
The decision was based on the findings, which also highlighted its positive properties in plumbing.
An archive of the post can be found here.
(Source: Facebook/Screenshot)
(Find archives of similar claims here, here and here.)
Is this true?: The claim is false. We found an article from 2018 on a Russian news satire website, Panorama that included similar content as the viral claim about China and Coca-Cola.
Further, we did not find any credible reports that could prove the sale of the beverage as a cleaning liquid.
How did we find out?: We ran a relevant keyword search and came across a Russian website called Panorama.
It published an article in 2018 with the headline, "Coca-Cola will be sold as a drain cleaner in China." (translated from Russian to English)
Upon reading the piece, we noticed that the contents of the article were the same as the viral claim.
Here is the link to the article.
(Source: Panorama/Screenshot)
At the bottom of the article, there was a note that read "All texts on this site are grotesque parodies of reality and are not real news."
Here is a close-up of the note.
(Source: Panorama/Screenshot)
To verify further, we came across a profile of the founders of Panorama News by Russian news website, Meduza.
First, it read that Panorama publishes "fictitious news." It also compared it to the United States of America's The Onion.
Even Panorama's 'Support Us' page notes that they are a satirical media site.
Here is the link to their 'Support Us' page.
(Source: Panorama/Screenshot)
Further, we also came across a couple of claims from 2018 on Facebook that also have similar contents as Panorama's article. Archives of those claims can be found here and here.
These were posted after Panorama published their article.
Additionally, we did not find any credible reports to verify that China has listed Coca-Cola as a cleaning liquid.
Conclusion: It is clear that the viral claim is false. A satirical news website posted about this in 2018.
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