Amazon is helping hate groups profit by letting them sell Nazi-themed goods on its store, a report suggests.
The study found many hate groups were selling goods on Amazon’s store branded with Nazi imagery, including clothing, jewellery and replica military regalia.
Some hate groups were also selling music and books celebrating their views via Amazon, it said.
Amazon has now removed some listings and said anyone who broke its guidelines would face “swift action”.
The report by two US organisations, the Partnership for Working Families and the Action Center on Race and the Economy, looked at the way white supremacist groups used Amazon to fund themselves.
It said Amazon’s “weak and inadequately enforced” policies gave racist, Islamophobic and anti-Semitic movements many different ways to generate cash, spread their ideas and grow.
The groups found a wide variety of goods displaying established hate symbols such as the swastika and anti-black imagery as well as more modern imagery adopted by racist groups.
Openly racist writers, musicians and activists were also selling their content via Amazon, it found.
While Amazon had specific policies that banned “products that promote or glorify hatred, violence, racial, sexual or religious intolerance or promote organisations with such views”, it did a poor job of enforcing this stance, found the report.
It said: “Amazon has a history of responding slowly – or not at all – to public pressure on this front rather than effectively preventing hate groups from using its platforms in the first place.”
The groups urged Amazon to take a “clear public stand” on hate movements and stop them profiting.
Amazon has removed many of the items found by the report and said it was working to stop neo-Nazi musicians streaming content.
In a statement Amazon said sellers on its marketplace “must follow our guidelines and those who don’t are subject to swift action including potential removal of their account”.
Source: BBC
