The holidays have passed, and with that comes pounds worth of turkey rushed to customers for mass consumer consumption. What poultry brand is more quintessential than Butterball when it comes to holiday main dish essentials? According to their own statistics, their product accounts for more than twenty percent of all turkeys in the United States, and, on Thanksgiving Day, 1 in 5 turkeys will be a Butterball turkey.

Unfortunately, for the famous brand, the animal activist group PETA or People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals resurfaced an old video of former employees committing heinous acts against captive turkeys inside of the poultry plant. The activist group made the old video viral just days before the company’s best-selling holiday. It was posted to their Instagram page with the tagline, “Do you know what happened to your Butterball turkey before they were killed?”

The video is of poor quality, with the resolution being quite fuzzy. Audiences can, however, discern disturbing details such as a man grabbing a turkey and making humping gestures behind it, and another man proudly shouting, “I kicked the motherf*.”
Social media has taken drastic measures, declaring a complete boycott of the company.

But what people need to take note of is that the video shared by PETA is from 2006–nearly nineteen years ago. A lot can change in two decades, especially when it comes to positive changes and more humane business practices. Those who watched the video on Instagram should be more relaxed when judging the company; these actions clearly occurred long ago. The video quality is a testament that violence against turkeys did not happen in our current era.

The New York Post spoke to a spokesperson from the company, who took to the media to defend these new practices. They explained that “the video is not current and was taken prior to Butterball becoming a private company and prior to our engagement and certification through American Humane. They also assured those who were in a panic online that “animal care and well-being is central to who we are as a company.”

Butterball is apparently the only American turkey company that is “American Humane certified.” What does this mean? To receive this certification, the company must be audited yearly by a third-party company to ensure that they are meeting science-based standards for animal welfare and best practices by the poultry industry overall. Therefore, this is not a certification they can make up and slap onto their label; it is an accolade that must be earned.

In a time where the internet allows all eyes on anyone or anything with a media presence, we must be wary of fact-checking what we consume. Time is a facet of the accuracy of the details of an event, and so if an event is not current, then it likely might not remain faithful. Hopefully, for Butterball, the age of the viral video will be made more widely understood to deter any more unnecessary damage to the brand’s reputation.