What do Pride Month and football have in common?
Well, lately, social media misinformation.
“Breaking: Steelers’ Coach Tomlin Directs Team To Not Participate In Pride Month, ‘It’s Woke Crap’ read a June 9 Facebook post that showed an image of Pittsburgh Steelers coach Mike Tomlin alongside another image of people holding rainbow flags.
(Screenshot of Facebook Post)
The post was flagged as part of Meta’s efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram.)
The viral post links to a story in the comments section. That story claimed Tomlin made anti-Pride celebration comments during a press conference. “We are here to play football, not to get involved in social or political movements,” it quoted him as saying. “Pride Month is woke crap, and it has no place in our team activities.”
A Steelers spokesperson confirmed that Tomlin made no such comments, and a review of Tomlin’s recent press conferences shows he didn’t mention Pride Month.
The story appears to have started on SpaceXMania.com and its affiliated website Essports.com — the same network of satire websites that gave rise to a False story about the Kansas City Chiefs refusing to participate in Pride Month.
When the Steelers claim was first shared on Facebook it had a satire disclaimer, but as it spread and the story was reposted on other websites, that disclaimer disappeared.
Some National Football League teams have made headlines this month because the teams have not made public statements acknowledging Pride Month on social media.
As of June 13, the official Steelers X account, Instagram, and Facebook had not shared anything LGBTQ+ related for Pride Month, but the team’s official community relations account on X posted a picture on June 1 after it said some of its staff marched in a local pride parade.
We rate the claim that Tomlin directed his team to not participate in Pride Month and called it “woke crap,” False.