A Cheerios commercial featuring an interracial couple sparked such a vicious racism-fuelled backlash on YouTube that the comments section on the video had to be shut down.
The ad, featuring cute interactions between parents and their daughter was posted on May 28, has been viewed more than 260,000 times and received more than 3,000 likes.
But soon after its posting, the comments section was flooded with racist references to Nazis and “racial genocide”, according to Adweek.
The company shut down the comments section but made no reference to the backlash in a statement to Gawker.
“Consumers have responded positively to our new Cheerios ad. At Cheerios, we know there are many kinds of families and we celebrate them all,” said Cheerios Vice President of Marketing Camille Gibson.
Racist comments continued on Reddit where some users said they would boycott the product because of the ad.
Others lamented how quickly the feedback descended into racist diatribes from online trolls.
“So, about 50 years we’ll see our first commercial with same sex parents… Progress!” wrote Reddit user ‘farris25x’ on the site.