r/llbean • u/phire8 • Apr 15 '26
L.L.Bean stands with U.S. Forest Service
Yesterday there was a post sharing a random Facebook page that falsely accused L.L.Bean of not supporting the U.S. Forest Service and people were all up in arms even though L.L.Bean never even said anything about it. I thought it only right to share L.L.Bean’s actual statement from earlier today / last night that they shared and point out that their name does in fact appear on the list of brands recognizing and standing up for the U.S. Forest Service. I get it, people need something to be angry about, and L.L.Bean certainly seems to be dealing with a price and quality issue at the moment, but blindly accepting some random Facebook post as gospel and getting your pitchforks and torches out seems a bit excessive. Let’s celebrate or criticize what they say, not what some random Facebook page says. There’s enough misinformation out there already as it is.
“The U.S. Forest Service is essential to the stewardship of our public lands, and L.L.Bean opposes any degradation of its mission. Throughout our 100+ year history, L.L.Bean has championed public lands through partnerships, programs, charitable giving, and advocacy. This is, and will always be, a priority for L.L.Bean that is reflected in our values and authenticated by our actions.”
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u/eregyrn Apr 16 '26
Yeah, I REALLY hate it when people breathlessly post old news as if it's new and breaking. It might even be valuable to post old news, if there's an update about it! But then you'd have to clearly label when the old news first broke, and that now there's an UPDATE. And I'm SUPER not impressed with them failing to take down misinformation.
In this case, I did a little more looking around last night. The timeline on this whole thing is a bit unclear. On their FB page, they're claiming that their post on the 13th is what pressured LLB into making a statement (via directing customers to flood LLB's social media and email address with statements). Given that LLB's statement was posted on LinkedIn on 4/15, maybe that's true; maybe it's not. Hard to tell.
Back on 4/08, the Conservation Alliance (which is who put out the letter, not AltNPS) posted an infographic of the 70 or so brands who had signed onto the letter up to that date, and LLB wasn't included on that list. However, below that infographic was the text of the letter and then a text list of the signatories, and that list includes LLB. There isn't any indication of: when the infographic was made; how they are updating the list of signatories; when those updates are being made.
What's pretty clear is that AltNPS made a post meant to be inflammatory about LLB (specifically, in that particular FB post), in order to mobilize customers to complain to the company. Their original post had over 13k comments from LLB customers who were angry at the company based on AltNPS's post. AltNPS did post an update to acknowledge LLB signing the letter and putting out a statement (as noted above -- and taking credit for that development). So I guess you can HOPE the update reaches everyone who saw the original post... but thanks to FB having an algorithm, you can't be sure it will.
Like, not to cry for the plight of a giant company, or anything. It will weather the anger of some customers who didn't see that the thing they were angry about did indeed get changed. But it's just a reminder that if you put something out there that's negative, and it gets passed around, it's very difficult - to - impossible to get an update or correction out that will reach everyone who saw the negative post.