Whoever said ignorance is bliss wasn’t thinking clearly. Ignorance is dangerous, costly, and embarrassing. And it’s starting to seem like an American specialty. I know crazy stuff goes viral on social media all the time, and it’s easy to ignore…until it isn’t. In recent days, right-wing influencers have launched a boycott of Oregon’s Tillamook cheese, for reasons that can only be viewed as blatantly Islamophobic. It’s enough to make you want to go out and buy a big, healthy piece of Tillamook Cheddar. So I did.

Here’s the back story as I know it. Last week, some conservative social media commenters lost their minds after learning that Tillamook Cheddar has a “certified halal” seal on the package. Halal certification simply means that the food meets Muslim dietary guidelines and has undergone a third-party verification. Some assumed that the certification was new and that Tillamook had altered its recipe as an accommodation to Muslim customers. That suspicion unleashed an online torrent of anti-Muslim remarks and a proposed boycott.

The facts: Tillamook has not changed its recipe since 2016 when it switched to non-animal rennet for most of its Cheddars. Most creameries in the U.S. use non-animal rennet. It’s chymosin, the same milk-coagulating enzyme in animal rennet, but it’s produced via microbial fermentation instead of extracted from calf stomachs. Fermentation-produced chymosin is cheaper, preferred for some cheeses and acceptable to vegetarians. Oh, and to observant Muslims as well.

Were people objecting because they thought Tillamook had altered a product they loved just as it was? (I can relate to that. I was not happy when a creamery replaced the olive oil in its marinated cheese with vegetable oil.) Or were people objecting because they believed Tillamook was kowtowing to a religious group they despise? Or, maybe worse, were they aware of the facts but cynically trying to whip up a frenzy for their own benefit?

Tillamook’s communications department declined to comment when I reached out via email. I suppose they hope the fracas will blow over, and they already have a lot on their plate. A current class-action lawsuit accuses the Tillamook County Creamery Association, a member-owned cooperative, of so-called greenwashing—implying that their milk comes primarily from small, family-owned coastal dairy farms with cows on grass when most of it comes from Threemile Canyon Farms, an industrial dairy in Eastern Oregon.

David Gremmels, former president of Oregon’s Rogue Creamery and a member of the State of Oregon’s Sustainability Board, pointed out to me that Tillamook is one of a handful of U.S. creameries to be a Certified B Corporation, along with Rogue, Vermont Creamery, Cabot Creamery and Beehive Cheese.

“This is not an easy certification,” he wrote in an email. “They are using their profits for good.” As for Threemile Canyon Farms, Gremmels says it has “well-developed animal-care auditing and advanced resource-recovery sustainable systems for its scale.” The operation is indeed large but it’s certified sustainable, certified organic and voluntarily audited for animal-welfare practices by Validus.

Tillamook is a century-old much-loved Oregon brand. The Cheddars are solid—not my favorite “value” Cheddars but they have legions of fans. If you choose to avoid the brand because you disapprove of their milk sourcing, that’s fair. But to react to this fake news with vitriol and retribution is vile. Kudos to the ethical-purchasing platform Conscious Spend, which declared it “the most ridiculous boycott we’ve ever seen.”