Major e-commerce sites profiting and facilitating the sale of extremist-themed merchandise

ISD’s investigation on five major e-commerce sites openly hosting the sale of extremist merchandise is covered exclusively by Yahoo News. The report, which released Monday, analyses the situation on Redbubble, Etsy, Zazzle, Teepublic and Teespring, finding that each of the companies are platforming hateful, extremist merchandise that directly go against their own guidelines.

“This is, once again, a case of platforms setting guidelines and then just not enforcing them,” said Tim Squirrell, ISD’s head of communications and co-author of the report. “So much of the stuff that we found is just rooted in hate, rooted in discrimination, rooted in the vilification of various groups.”

Tim points out that while the sale of t-shirts supporting conspiracies may seem harmless, some products go so far as openly promoting violence against the LGBTQ+ community by framing them as “groomers” or “paedophiles” further contributing to a narrative that has already proven dangerous.

Profiting from Hate: Extremist Merchandise on Redbubble, Etsy, Teespring, Teerepublic and Zazzle was written by Tim and ISD Research Analyst Clara Martiny.