Tide responding to children taking part of a challenge in eating its PODs by discontinuing the product is a viral fake tweet. There is no truth to a tweet circulating social media suggesting that the company will be discontinuing the sale of their PODs laundry product after news of the dangerous Tide challenge.

The Tide challenge involves biting down on a brightly colored laundry detergent packet of any brand and spitting out or ingesting its contents, an act that poses serious health risks. YouTube and Facebook said they will remove material showing people who have recorded themselves performing the challenge. Tide released a video in which Rob Gronkowski of the New England Patriots discouraged the practice.

Snopes reported that social media users came across a tweet allegedly from Tide informing consumers that their PODs product was being discontinuing because “we can’t risk lives over having clean clothes.” However, Snopes noted that Tide has not many any such announcement, and the tweet is a fabrication.

Snopes explained that the fake tweet bore no time stamp at the bottom, that the tweet does not appear on the timeline of Tide’s official Twitter account, and that Tide knows that the name of their laundry product is properly rendered as “PODS” with all capital letters and not “Pods.”

Here are some reactions on social media to the viral fake tweet that Tide discontinued PODs.

Just heard #Tide is discontinuing #Pods, saying something like “lives matter more than clean clothes.”

I disagree.

Let stupid people eat them. Then we can thin the herd and be rid of the dumbest members of our society decades early, and do it in clean clothing.

Win-win. — David Insley, Writer of things you dare not read (@thedavidinsley) January 21, 2018

No need in discontinuing @tide pods…We should just let natural selection do it’s thing. — Natalie Williams❤ (@_natalie1205) January 21, 2018

You stupid people. STOP EATING @tide PODS!! These tiny beautiful things, seriously make my life better. The fact that they are discontinuing them, makes me so sad. Now I have to stock up like it’s the god damn apocalypse. #TidePods #adulting #TidePodChallenge #idiots #Apocalypse — Felicia Palmer (@fpalmer06) January 20, 2018

@tide there’s a thing going around saying you’re discontinuing pods. that true? — Silver A. Reyes (@FrostyFoxcoon) January 21, 2018

The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission issued a warning to parents several years ago about the liquid laundry detergent packets. The agency said the capsules which are colorful, squishy and smell good are attractive to young children but contain “highly concentrated, toxic detergent” that can cause harm.

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The New York Times said that in the first half of January 2018, poison control centers handled 39 cases in which teenagers were intentionally exposed to the detergent packets. That was as many as in all of 2016, the American Association of Poison Control Centers said. In 2017, poison control centers handled 53 such cases.

What did you think of the viral fake tweet that Tide was discontinuing its PODS? Did you believe the fake tweet or see people sharing the fake tweet on social media? Let us know in the comments section.

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