Amazon under fire after allowing sale of ‘Keep Calm and Knife Her’ t-shirts
Amazon has been left scrambling to remove offensive t-shirts being sold by American clothing company, Solid Gold Bomb, on its UK site.
The t-shirts had been emblazoned with slogans such as ‘Keep Calm and Hit Her’, ‘Keep Calm and Rape a Lot’, and ‘Keep Calm and Knife Her’, which Solid Gold Bomb claims were produced through an automated computer dictionary using an algorithm to vary the famous World War II slogan.
Both Amazon and Solid Gold Bomb were left dealing with complaints from angry shoppers when the t-shirts went on sale on Friday 1 March, forcing Solid Gold Bomb to close its Twitter and Facebook accounts.
Despite Amazon deleting the offensive t-shirts from its site, it continued to promote the store, while Solid Gold Bomb continued to sell the t-shirt on its own site well into Saturday afternoon. The T-shirts were still on sale in Germany on Saturday.
Amazon has not issued any statement on the matter, other than that from a spokesman who told Sky News: "I can confirm that those items are not available for sale."
Meanwhile, a representative of Solid Gold Bomb took to Twitter late on Saturday evening to issue an apology. It read: “These 'Keep Calm' shirts were computer-generated and we didn't even know we had a shirt that says that ... as soon as we realised this, we immediately deleted them.
“It takes time for them to be deleted.
“I was the person responsible for running the script that generated the T-shirt, not the company, not any other individuals.
“I appreciate everyone's comments but please, accept this as a mistake as we certainly do not condone 'rape'”