Online retail giant Amazon has been taken to task by the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) for allegedly “violating” its own company policies with the continued sale of far-right literature, t-shirts and similar paraphernalia.
An ADL report issued on Monday said that a recent search of Amazon by experts in the civil rights group’s Center on Extremism had demonstrated that “items and merchandise promoting right-wing extremist ideologies, including white supremacy and the anti-government militia movement, are still being offered for sale by various third-party sellers.”
The report said that “hateful books (including paradigmatic white supremacist novel ‘The Turner Diaries’)” along with “flags bearing extremist symbols,” such as the Celtic Cross rendered in a style reminiscent of the Nazi swastika, could be found with some creative searching.
“Searching Amazon using explicit terms such as ‘white power,’ ‘swastika’ and ‘skinhead’ does not yield any problematic results,” the report noted. “But using more obscure search terms turns up plenty of extremist-related products.”
The ADL pointed out that Amazon’s own policies prohibit the sale of “products that promote, incite, or glorify hate or violence towards any person or group” and “products that promote intolerance based on race, religion, and sexual orientation.”
The ADL report observed that additional flags for sale on Amazon showcased “the symbol for the British Union of Fascists (BUF), Nazi-styled flags with Othala runes or Sonnenrads (sun wheels) in place of the traditional swastikas and Iron Crosses, and the Iron Guard flag — popular among today’s white supremacists.”
