Paris, 28 July 2021
The company took these immediate measures based on the Centre’s demands:
- An apology
- Immediate deletion of its offensive shirt
- The partner who uploaded the design was blocked
- None of the designs were sold
- Spreadshirt is looking into the incorporation of the IHRA definition of antisemitism in their standards.
Spreadshirt 27 July Response to Our 23 July Outrage at Yellow Star T-Shirt
Dear Dr. Shimon Samuels,
Thank you very much for taking the time to be in touch with us on this matter. We apologize from the bottom of our hearts that a yellow star with an anti-vaccination message was online on our platform.
Please be assured that we deleted the design immediately as we became aware of it. The partner who uploaded the design to his online shop was also blocked by us because he violated our Community Standards several times.
Our Community Standards (https://www.spreadshirt.com/community-standards-C3529), but of course also our values and our convictions as a company, prohibit such content in the strongest possible terms.
After a similarly terrible incident in the spring of 2020 we improved our technical and also manual measures in the design upload process for our partners. One element was e.g. the better detection of designs similar in shape to a star in the color yellow. And we also worked on the design reporting, enabling our community to inform us quickly in case they find a design on our platform which might violate our standards. We are currently investigating at full speed how the designs could go online at all last week and are very sorry that it happened as we strongly condemn such content.
We can confirm that none of the designs have been sold which means that no products have been printed with these symbols.
Thank you very much for your offered support and warning us about this completely unacceptable sticker design.
We will continue to improve our measures to ensure that while we are a platform based on user generated content that our partners follow the platform’s Community Standards. As part of this we will take a closer look if we could incorporate the IHRA Definition of antisemitism in our standards.
Best regards,
Eike Adler
Director Corporate Communications