The tea that spilled over: How a message of empathy became a target of political manipulation

If a brand promoting kindness can be dragged through political mud overnight, what does that mean for the next campaign that dares to speak about inclusion, empathy, or diversity?

By a Special Correspondent

It began as a tender message about love, parenting, and understanding.

A series of three short films — each rooted in Sri Lankan family life — told simple but profound stories: a father learning to appreciate his son’s individuality, a mother balancing care and ambition, and a household bridging generations with mutual respect.

The idea was clear — don’t box people in. Let children dream, let families evolve, and let tradition and modernity coexist.

But within days, this message of acceptance was hijacked, twisted, and turned into one of the most vicious online controversies of the year. The speed of the outrage, the language used, and the synchronised timing of the posts suggest something far more deliberate — a planned, politically motivated attack disguised as public backlash.

Act One: The calm before the chaos

The campaign launched quietly.

On the first two days, engagement was minimal but overwhelmingly positive. Comments praised the storytelling and authenticity — “heartwarming,” “inspiring,” “finally a local brand talking about real family values.”

This was exactly what the creative team intended — emotional resonance with modern Sri Lankan families navigating change.

But beneath the calm surface, something was shifting. By the third day, a handful of unfamiliar profiles began commenting with subtle disapproval. They didn’t follow the brand, they had almost no posting history, and their accounts had been created or reactivated within the same week.

At first glance, it looked like harmless opinion. But soon, a pattern began to emerge.

Act Two: The sudden eruption

Within 24 hours, the tone online changed dramatically.

From fewer than 10 comments a day, the discussion ballooned to hundreds. Then, overnight, to nearly a thousand. The words were eerily identical — accusations of “destroying culture,” “promoting an agenda,” “corrupting children.”

Tracing these posts revealed multiple politically themed pages sharing the same screenshots, the same hashtags, and the same captions — sometimes even the same spelling mistakes. Several of these pages were openly affiliated with political movements on both sides of Sri Lanka’s spectrum.

It wasn’t a coincidence. It was coordination.

The strategy was textbook digital manipulation: hijack a popular piece of content, inject a moral panic, and drive engagement through anger. It was the same playbook used in global disinformation wars — repackaged for local politics.

Act Three: When morality meets politics

Once the fake outrage gained traction, political opportunists joined the chorus. Influencers and activists began reframing the conversation — from a parenting story to a moral debate about “foreign influence” and “liberal corruption.”

Suddenly, a tea commercial became a cultural battlefield.

Comment threads turned into ideological wars. People who hadn’t even seen the video began sharing opinions based on doctored screenshots and cropped edits.

The brand’s inclusive message — about empathy and individuality — was now being portrayed as a threat to national values.

The orchestrators had achieved their goal: they had successfully weaponised emotion.

Act Four: The engineered amplification

Data patterns from independent tracking confirm the unnatural growth curve.

Mentions spiked exponentially in a matter of hours, not days. The accounts that initiated the attack often posted across multiple political discussions simultaneously, switching between unrelated topics but using the same tone and structure.

This kind of velocity is not achievable through organic conversation.

It requires planning — content scheduling, page coordination, and sometimes even paid distribution.

By this point, the issue had escaped the brand’s control. What began as digital vandalism turned into media amplification. Some mainstream outlets, unaware of the origins, began reporting on the “public backlash,” unintentionally legitimising the false narrative.

Act Five: The retreat

Under pressure, the brand eventually took down the main post — a move that erased the original context and left behind only fragments of negativity. The deletion was likely meant to stop the bleeding, but it also played into the attackers’ hands.

By removing the asset, the brand inadvertently silenced the authentic voices that were defending it. It became a case study in how retreating under pressure can amplify misinformation rather than contain it.

Meanwhile, the orchestrated outrage had already achieved its true purpose — not to challenge the ad’s content, but to showcase political influence and digital muscle.

Anatomy of a digital ambush

Disinformation researchers identify four recurring stages in such online operations:

•  Seeding: Introduce the controversy through a few fake or fringe accounts.
•  Amplifying: Spread it via political pages and influencer networks.
•  Reframing: Shift the story from the original topic to a politically charged one.
•  Echoing: Allow real users and traditional media to unknowingly reinforce it.

In this case, every stage was executed with precision.

The moral outrage served as camouflage — beneath it lay a coordinated attempt to manipulate public sentiment and project political narratives through the vehicle of a commercial brand.

Beyond Watawala: A broader warning

The incident raises urgent questions about the state of digital ethics and freedom of expression in Sri Lanka.

If a brand promoting kindness can be dragged through political mud overnight, what does that mean for the next campaign that dares to speak about inclusion, empathy, or diversity?

Social media has become the new public square — but also the new battleground. The algorithms reward outrage, not understanding. The more divisive a post, the wider it spreads. And that’s exactly what political strategists exploit: emotional manipulation at scale.

Brands now find themselves on the frontlines of ideological wars they never volunteered for.

The real lesson

The lesson from this episode is not about whether a tea ad should show a boy who likes dance over cricket.

The lesson is that manufactured outrage has become a political tool — and the line between social conversation and social engineering is vanishing.

Marketers must learn to see disinformation not as a PR crisis, but as a deliberate tactic. They need to anticipate not just consumer reactions, but politically motivated distortions.

And audiences, too, must ask: Who benefits from my outrage?

Because the truth is — what happened to one tea brand could happen to any business, any individual, any idea that dares to preach empathy in a divided digital world.

In the end, the campaign’s message stands taller than the noise it provoked:

Don’t box people in — not your children, not your beliefs, not even your brands.

What Sri Lanka witnessed wasn’t a storm in a teacup.

It was a storm that was brewed — deliberately, politically, and with purpose.