Social media giants’ toleration of the alt-right is fairly well known. Less so is the presence of far-right merchandise on some of the Internet’s biggest retail sites. While a few websites cleansed themselves of ISIS propaganda, seemingly little is being done by retailers to likewise rid themselves of far-right extremism.
The sale of hardcore right-wing merchandise does not take place in the seedy corners of the Dark Web, but openly on major sites like Amazon, Zazzle, Redbubble, Teespring, and TeePublic. Often using jargon, in-jokes, and irony, these retail items communicate antisemitism, celebrate fascism, hype dangerous conspiracy theories, and call for violence.
The sale of hardcore right-wing merchandise does not take place in the seedy corners of the Dark Web, but openly on major sites.
The examples abound. Online retailer Redbubble sells a T-shirt featuring a helicopter bearing a Kek color scheme throwing out avatars for communists, Black Lives Matter activists, Muslims, and feminists. Among the far-right, the “helicopter rides” meme admiringly recalls the late Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet’s practice of throwing his leftist opponents from helicopters.
Another T-shirt for sale on Amazon declares that, “Pinochet did nothing wrong.” A similar one was worn by a demonstrator involved in assaults at a far-right rally in Portland, Oregon, two years ago. When previously criticized for selling analogous items, Amazon removed them. Their current presence indicates little is being done to keep them off.
Another far-right meme in circulation references Rhodesia. Now called Zimbabwe, Rhodesia is beloved by the far-right because of its apartheid government’s open embrace of white supremacy. Dylann Roof, who murdered nine people at a Charleston, South Carolina, church in 2015, was known to wear the Rhodesian flag and published his hate manifesto on a website called “Last Rhodesian.”
Clothing celebrating Rhodesia can currently be purchased on Amazon and Zazzle.
In 1960, Otoya Yamaguchi publicly assassinated Japanese Socialist Party politician Inejiro Asanuma with a sword. A photo of this event won the Pulitzer Prize, and is now displayed on shirts readily available on Amazon and Redbubble. This incident continues to serve as an inspiration for violent far-right figures today.
A good example is Proud Boys founder Gavin McInnes, who at a 2018 event where he deliberately evoked Yamaguchi, was filmed swinging a fake katana (a type of Japanese sword) at counter-protesters according to a report by Jane Coaston in Vox. Prosecutors charged ten members of the group, though not McInnes, who claims to have distanced himself from the organization. Two others were sentenced in October to four-year prison terms.
Despite being called out for selling Proud Boys merchandise before, Amazon still has shirts available. These come up readily when searching with the acronym POYB (proud of your boy), a Proud Boys motto.
The far right often encodes its racism with in-jokes, jargon, and acronyms. Gwen Snyder, a community organizer, anti-fascist researcher, and writer says this is done to help with recruiting.
The far right often encodes its racism with in-jokes, jargon, and acronyms.
“It’s to avoid deplatforming [removal from social media sites and other venues], and it’s also to avoid being seen for what they are,” she tells The Progressive.
While Proud Boys merchandise is harder to find these days, the same cannot be said for QAnon. Redbubble, Amazon, Zazzle, and TeePublic all sell it. For those not in the know, QAnon is a false but disturbingly popular conspiracy theory that postulates that Donald Trump is integral to a plan to take down a ring of pedophilic, Satan worshiping Democrats and Hollywood stars. Followers have committed several acts of violence.
“What QAnon is mostly known for is inspiring genuinely unhinged behavior among political rightists, and that’s of course a product of the conspiracy theories themselves being so completely unhinged and detached from reality,” says journalist David Neiwert, author of the 2018 book, Alt-America: The Rise of the Radical Right in the Age of Trump.
Militias have gotten in on the t-shirt action as well. Three percenter merchandise is easy enough to get on Amazon, TeeSpring, Redbubble, and Zazzle. Often showing up armed to protests and having one self-proclaimed supporter (who the organization has claimed to renounce and tried to gain distance from) connected to a bomb plot, the group claims to be about the Constitution. In truth they are “anti-government extremists who are part of the militia movement,” according to the Anti-Defamation League.
Other far-right groups even more strongly associated with violence ply their wares with big retailers. Portland has been rocked by street battles in recent years, much of it driven by the far-right group Patriot Prayer. Shirts celebrating this organization, called “a far-right group,” that is “frequently engaging in violence against their political opponents,” by the Southern Poverty Law Center, can be found on Amazon.
Other far-right groups even more strongly associated with violence ply their wares with big retailers.
Anticom, short for Anti-Communist Action, were key players in the deadly 2017 “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, in which counter-protestor Heather Heyer was killed. ProPublica reporting showed Anticom members chatting online about their street violence and bomb-making plans. Some reporting shows they are now defunct, yet Amazon, Redbubble, and Teespring all sell merchandise bearing their logo.
The examples go on and on. Racial slurs like dindu, Islamophobic lines like Deus Vult, and anti-Semitic jokes like goy can be found on merchandise sold by big retailers. In addition, while reporting this piece items associated with Groypers, Incels, and demanding the release of Kenosha, WI shooter Kyle Rittenhouse were all found being sold by at least some of the aforementioned websites. It’s hard to know exactly what the sales numbers are, but its ready availability indicates little is being done to proactively remove it.
TeePublic claims it has monitors who look for designs that violate their standards, and say they have removed many associated with QAnon.
“We look at individual works and their societal context, the intent of the artist, the likely interpretation of the customer, and try to find a balance between creative expression (such as the satiric nature of the designs featuring the fictional country of Kekistan) and our goal of maintaining an inclusive community,” TeePublic says in an email. “It’s not a simple issue; a symbol in one country might mean something else entirely in another, and phrases and symbols are often appropriated and their meanings changed.”
Zazzle does “not accept or tolerate hate” and removes items that violate its terms of service, a spokesperson says in an email. It also claims to use algorithms and filters to block hateful content.
“While we monitor for terminology including designs and expressions that are newly emerged as terms of hate, we also provide a mechanism for users to immediately notify us if they come across such content,” the spokesperson says. “Each inquiry is immediately reviewed and action is taken where needed. Designers who promote or express hate on our site are removed from the marketplace and banned from subsequent participation.”
Nandini Jammi, a marketing industry consultant who has criticized companies whose websites are used by hate groups, is skeptical about claims of self-policing.
“These are companies that work at scale,” Jammi says. “They don’t know who’s in their networks, who’s on their platforms, who their customers are, so when folks on Twitter or on social media give them the heads up there should be some kind of a review process.”
Instead, Jammi sees a lack of enforcement even when problems are brought forth. She believes these entities should engage in an audit to determine who their customers are.
‘They have amplified and monetized, enabled these groups to grow at a rate that would never be possible [otherwise]’
“They have amplified and monetized, enabled these groups to grow at a rate that would never be possible [otherwise],” Jammi says. “They have given them the microphone through social media networks, and they’ve given them the ability to become hate merchants, to grow business just like any normal person would.”
Jammi, Snyder, and Neiwert all say that retailers should remove merchandise associated with the far-right—with Jammi calling it the “economy of hate.” Snyder says this serves to embolden far-right groups like The Proud Boys, and Neiwert says there’s a “moral imperative” to remove this merchandise. He says companies should hire or consult with people to deal with this issue, and cites British apparel maker Fred Perry stopping U.S. sales of the black and yellow shirts favored by The Proud Boys as exemplary behavior.
“It’s infuriating,” Snyder says. “They wouldn’t be selling ISIS merchandise. But because white supremacism is so accepted in the United States, they just treat it as normal and acceptable to retail.”