Overview

#BoycottDelta is a hashtag campaign that emerged on Twitter after popular "YouTube" vlogger Adam Saleh filmed himself getting removed from a Delta Airlines flight allegedly for speaking Arabic.

Background

On December 21st, 2016, Saleh tweeted a video of him getting removed from a Delta Airines flight from London to New York City for speaking Arabic to his mom on the phone. The tweet, shown below, gained over 522,000 retweets and 404,000 likes.

According to Saleh's management team, the situation unfolded after several passengers 'got angry and started abusing him, swearing and saying that they felt threatened as he was speaking a different language.'^[1] Delta Airlines issued a statement after the incident that said two passengers had been "removed from a flight and later rebooked after a disturbance in the cabin resulted in more than 20 customers expressing their discomfort."

Developments

Saleh's video inspired #BoycottDelta to trend on Twitter that day.^[2] Many people expressed outrage at Delta Airlines for the incident, while others doubted whether or not Saleh's video was expressing the entire truth of the incident, especially as his recent Human Mail Challenge video had been exposed as a hoax^[3] and that he had a history of using his Arabic heritage to pull pranks on planes in YouTube videos.

In its coverage of the incident, Slate^[4] pointed out that "In 2014, "(Saleh) posted a video that has since been viewed nearly 2 million times purporting show a New York police officer racially profiling him and a friend for wearing traditional Islamic garb. (Saleh) later acknowledged that the video was a “dramatization of previous events that occurred with us in our tradition clothing while filming in NYC.” The event was also covered by Time^[5] and Bustle.^[6] Saleh was later put on a different flight to New York the same day.

Passenger's Reddit Post

That day, Redditor Chain187 submitted a post to the /r/socialmedia^[7] subreddit, claiming he was a passenger on the Delta Airlines flight from which YouTube star Adam Saleh was ejected on Wednesday. In the post, he revealed that Saleh was not on the phone to his mother when he was removed, but had goaded a friend into shouting in Arabic across the plane to film passengers' reactions. As proof, Chain187 provided a photo of a boarding pass for the same flight.

"Maybe no-one will see this maybe there will be a backlash I don't know but I feel I should say what actually happened on this flight. I was sat two seats away from them internet prankster and his friend. Neither of them was on any phone call I could hear them talking in plain American English. The YouTube guy was trying to get his friend to shout something in Arabic which he did a total of 4 times. He shouted it across the plane and the first two times I thought he was shouting maybe a friend or something. A couple of passengers after the second time said they were making themselves and their young children uncomfortable and could they shut up. They told her to shut up and then he shouted it again and her husband started saying it to them. They were filming people's reactions on their phones, I assume for some comedy YouTube video but they were made to delete it. For the record of anyone who thinks I have some racist or prejudicial motivation to say this.. first of all that's a sad way of thinking.. secondly I am mixed race of Jamaican/British descent so I have experience more than my fair share. Secondly I have been the best man at two Arabic weddings, sad I need this disclaimer but it is what it is.. if anyone wants to ask any questions or berate me for whatever reason I'll stick around while I wait 6 hours for my connecting flight."

Search Interest

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External References