A promotional stunt in South Africa that encourages people to personalise their Coke cans has banned the word gay.

by Newsdesk | 26th January 2014

The Coco-Cola website invites you to enter your name or message, which will then be printed on to cans and bottles which will go on sale in South Africa. However certain words have been banned, including the word gay.

If users attempt to enter the word gay, an error message appears saying: 'Opps, let's pretend you didn't just type that. Please try another name.'

Coca-Cola is one of the major sponsors of this year's Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia. The multi-national beverage maker has come under intense criticism over the lack of vocal support for the LGBTQI community, in relationship to its position as a corporate sponsor of the Winter Olympics in Russia.

Other banned words also include Lesbian, but not bisexual or transgender.