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I just was reading an article on DailyMail about an anti-Semitic design that has some people calling to boycott Zazzle on Twitter. The design read, “At least I’m not Jewish” in a Germanic font. Zazzle took the design down and has banned the designer, per the article. You would think it would be common sense not to try and submit such a blatantly racist and distasteful design. It’s irritating that one bad apple is causing people to create #boycottzazzle hashtags.
Anyway, just wanted to report that and just throw it out there that Zazzle is no place for hatred and bigotry.
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It leaves me speechless.
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wow  I have no words that are fit for this space... or for my faith. 😡🤬😠
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Betty Jane wrote:It’s irritating that one bad apple is causing people to create #boycottzazzle hashtags. Ugh seriously! Why punish the rest of us for what ONE person did? When was this? This is the first I'm hearing of this. I'd love to counter the boycott somehow. This really unfair to the rest of us.
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What a nasty design. I'm glad they immediately banned whoever made it.
I can see why the bots didn't catch it. It contains neither symbols nor banned words and only a human would be able to realize what was going on. The bot can screen out swastikas (I'm sure this @#!@ tried that) and slurs but this was always going to get through.
The search results brought up by ArtAttic's google of this story shows something really dismaying. The google bot uses the search term to autofill any word+Zazzle search (I'm sure Zazzle paid a lot for that) and so offers to find more anti semitic shirts sold at Zazzle. With some trepidation I clicked the link but thankfully it only pulled up anti anti Semitism shirts at Zazzle.
Some of the news stories and blog posts also show something dismaying about how the world sees Zazzle. Most of them are written as though Zazzle is complicit (the autofill probably adds to this impression) and pulled the shirt with reluctance while I am guessing they pulled the shirt with horror that it spent even one minute on the website. We designers see ourselves and stores as something like individual stalls at an arts and crafts fair. But the world sees Zazzle more as a department store that has a buyer who went out and bought merchandise from artist vendors and so has vetted everyhting shown here.
The take home message for me (besides that there are more #$@#$ out there than I thought) is that we have to hit that 'report this design' button if something like this sneaks into Zazzle again and to be vigilant. The Zazzle bots can't do it. The Zazzle employees probably spend more time working on the code than actually looking at the pages. And the visitors to Zazzle will simply assume that Zazzle and by extension all of us condone such evil.
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This is what I get when searching by DuckDuckGo. Look at the wording under the first and the third link. Is this how autofill works? I don't know but I imagine it should be possible to ban some words from autofill so it doesn't create such awful search results. ![]()
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WittyBetty wrote:This is what I get when searching by DuckDuckGo. Look at the wording under the first and the third link. Is this how autofill works? I don't know but I imagine it should be possible to ban some words from autofill so it doesn't create such awful search results. ![]() It probably depends on who controls the autofill. I am guessing that Zazzle pays DuckDuckGo and Zazzle for that autofill and if so they might be able to ban some words from autofilling shopping results. But also maybe not. It might be this autofilling of shopping results that is contributing to the impression that Zazzle condones this. The blog posts and news stories certainly seemed to think Zazzle was complicit although we sure know better.
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Yes, Susannah, I thought exactly this. The enthusiastic tone of the wording + the word "anti-semitic" in it makes it sound even worse. I am honestly shocked it works this way.
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Such misinformation has become rampant, and though not all is caused by search engines, a good amount of it is. In today's world where so many people are unwilling to read, the results can't be good.
One blessing is that it's doubtful people will search specifically for "zazzle anti-semitic tshirt." Another blessing in a very perverse way is that so many people believe they're keeping up with the news by absorbing gossip on social media, and social media's big deal today is all but forgotten the next.
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Colorwash wrote:Such misinformation has become rampant, and though not all is caused by search engines, a good amount of it is. In today's world where so many people are unwilling to read, the results can't be good.
One blessing is that it's doubtful people will search specifically for "zazzle anti-semitic tshirt." Another blessing in a very perverse way is that so many people believe they're keeping up with the news by absorbing gossip on social media, and social media's big deal today is all but forgotten the next. I hope you are right but somehow I think Twitter is different... Stuff seems to linger there longer than other SM.
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I did read one story about it yesterday that ended on a good note by recommending a positive t-shirt design about Jewish people on Zazzle but it was an obscure news outlet that I bet not many people know of.
The Jerusalem Post story was not as nice...
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Yes, Twitter is a problem. I know a number of people (myself included) who've stopped even visiting there. I wasn't getting anything out of it anyway. I abandoned Facebook too, though there it's because I don't trust the company to not lie to me.
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Colorwash wrote:Yes, Twitter is a problem. I know a number of people (myself included) who've stopped even visiting there. I wasn't getting anything out of it anyway. I abandoned Facebook too, though there it's because I don't trust the company to not lie to me. I like Twitter for promoting because it is necessary but in general I don't like any SM. especially FB. I still have an account there but I don't use it anymore.
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Susannah Keegan wrote:
I can see why the bots didn't catch it. It contains neither symbols nor banned words and only a human would be able to realize what was going on. The bot can screen out swastikas (I'm sure this @#!@ tried that) and slurs but this was always going to get through.
There are tons of swastikas in the MP. Granted, they mostly seem to be used in a religious manner, but they are there. Just search for swastikas. So, if there is a bot looking for them it is asleep at the wheel. Also search Anti-Semitism and scroll a bit. There is one shirt that is in a language that I can't read but the image is pretty blatant. Also, not sure if you know who Countess de Martel de Janville Sibylle Riqueti de Mirabeau was, but using the tag 'anti-semitism' along with her photo is pretty accurate. I don't like to police the MP for questionable content because I honor the 1st amendment as a general rule, but Zazzle might want to scrub through it with human eyes from time to time if they want to remain PC. I understand that there are millions of products in the MP, but there aren't that many keywords that might cause a twitter storm and I imagine most of them are already disabled in the MP. ETA: You can't even use the word swast1ka here in the forums in its singular form, lol.
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This is horrible! I just don't have words. 
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People who are anti-Semitic/white supremacists have a whole visual language that those of us ignorant of the culture probably see all of the time, but have no idea of the meanings.... there are things that until recently I would have had *zero* clue were theirs that are definitely found here like Pepe the Frog, ACAB, AKIA (a particularly nasty one....). These are things that probably seem pretty innocent to people out of the loop... I only know about many of them because I was doing some research and came across this database - https://www.adl.org/education-and-resources/resource-knowledge-base/hate-symbolsMany of these have nothing overt in them and could possibly mean something else... so they aren't caught by filters and have plausible deniability. The poster can always say they didn't know what the symbol meant.
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Invincible Penguin wrote:People who are anti-Semitic/white supremacists have a whole visual language that those of us ignorant of the culture probably see all of the time, but have no idea of the meanings.... there are things that until recently I would have had *zero* clue were theirs that are definitely found here like Pepe the Frog, ACAB, AKIA (a particularly nasty one....). These are things that probably seem pretty innocent to people out of the loop... I only know about many of them because I was doing some research and came across this database - https://www.adl.org/education-and-resources/resource-knowledge-base/hate-symbolsMany of these have nothing overt in them and could possibly mean something else... so they aren't caught by filters and have plausible deniability. The poster can always say they didn't know what the symbol meant. That list was depressing...
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Bet the same person that created it also reported it, and pushed for the boycott. Propaganda Panda.
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Invincible Penguin wrote:People who are anti-Semitic/white supremacists have a whole visual language that those of us ignorant of the culture probably see all of the time, but have no idea of the meanings.... there are things that until recently I would have had *zero* clue were theirs that are definitely found here like Pepe the Frog, ACAB, AKIA (a particularly nasty one....). These are things that probably seem pretty innocent to people out of the loop... I only know about many of them because I was doing some research and came across this database - https://www.adl.org/education-and-resources/resource-knowledge-base/hate-symbolsMany of these have nothing overt in them and could possibly mean something else... so they aren't caught by filters and have plausible deniability. The poster can always say they didn't know what the symbol meant. No. Let's not start with the "That's racist" stuff here. Pepe the frog is not a hate symbol. Neither is the okay hand sign. Just because someone hateful uses a symbolism doesn't make it hateful for everyone else. Symbols are used all the time by different people for different things. Some examples of symbolism with multiple meanings: The V hand sign. In the 60s that meant peace. But in the 80s where is lived that was a symbol for virgin. The rainbow is a symbol for God's patience in Christianity. Other people use it to display their sexuality. Let's not start calling everyone a racist here. That's CNN's job.
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PunHouse wrote:Invincible Penguin wrote:People who are anti-Semitic/white supremacists have a whole visual language that those of us ignorant of the culture probably see all of the time, but have no idea of the meanings.... there are things that until recently I would have had *zero* clue were theirs that are definitely found here like Pepe the Frog, ACAB, AKIA (a particularly nasty one....). These are things that probably seem pretty innocent to people out of the loop... I only know about many of them because I was doing some research and came across this database - https://www.adl.org/education-and-resources/resource-knowledge-base/hate-symbolsMany of these have nothing overt in them and could possibly mean something else... so they aren't caught by filters and have plausible deniability. The poster can always say they didn't know what the symbol meant. No. Let's not start with the "That's racist" stuff here. Pepe the frog is not a hate symbol. Neither is the okay hand sign. Just because someone hateful uses a symbolism doesn't make it hateful for everyone else. Symbols are used all the time by different people for different things. Some examples of symbolism with multiple meanings: The V hand sign. In the 60s that meant peace. But in the 80s where is lived that was a symbol for virgin. The rainbow is a symbol for God's patience in Christianity. Other people use it to display their sexuality. Let's not start calling everyone a racist here. That's CNN's job. Exactly. Also the Confederate flag is not a hate symbol. Neither is the Celtic symbol (I can't use the second word that begins with a C, apparently.)
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