Bud Light backlash unrelated to video of steamrolled beer cans

"The American people will no longer be drinking crappy beer," says an April 11, 2023 Instagram post from Turning Point Action, a conservative youth group.

The post includes a video of a steamroller crushing crates of beer and several hashtags referencing the LGBTQ community.

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Screenshot of an Instagram post taken April 17, 2023

Turning Point Action is affiliated with Charlie Kirk's Turning Point USA, which AFP has fact-checked several times.

The video also circulated on Facebook, Twitter and TikTok, where one version amassed more than 3.7 million views. Benny Johnson, a conservative commentator, reshared the clip on YouTube.

The claims come after Dylan Mulvaney, who grew to social media fame by documenting her gender transition online, published on April 1 a short video promoting Bud Light. The Instagram post, shared with Mulvaney's 1.8 million followers, was part of a paid sponsorship deal with Anheuser-Busch parent company AB InBev.

Mulvaney's video caused an uproar among conservative politicians, celebrities and social media users, who vowed to boycott the brand. Some posted footage of themselves destroying Bud Light cans.

But the steamroller clip shared online is unrelated to the fracas.

Reporter Yerson Martinez of La Voz de la Frontera in the Mexican state of Baja California originally posted the video to TikTok on February 28, 2023.

Martinez told AFP he recorded the video and said the destruction was related to "a seizure of beer that was made in Mexicali during the Covid pandemic." He added that the posts "are using the cropped video and out of context."

Martinez said authorities destroyed the beer in the video -- not all of which was Bud Light -- because it "had already gone bad." Multiple Spanish-language news organizations covered the incident.

Armando Nieblas, a reporter at the investigative outlet Border Hub, shared a similar video on Twitter.

"Minute of silence for this tragedy. More than 85,000 cans and containers of beer were destroyed by the City of #Mexicali," says his February 28 tweet, translated into English from Spanish.

The stockpile comprised illegal imports amid a beer shortage during the Covid-19 pandemic, when Mexican authorities declared the brew non-essential.

AFP has debunked other claims about the Bud Light controversy here and here.