On Tuesday, Shopify shut down the Yeezy store run by Ye (formerly known as Kanye West) after it listed shirts with swastikas for sale as reported earlier by Bloomberg and NBC News. Ye advertised the site in a commercial shown during the Super Bowl on Sunday. It previously sold things like sneakers and t-shirts, but on Monday, the only item for sale was a $20 swastika shirt with the product name “HH-01,” which the ADL says is code for “Heil Hitler.”
Ye had started posting antisemitic rhetoric on X, where he’d been banned in 2022 for posting swastikas. Leading up to the Super Bowl ad, though, his account has been deactivated.
The shop, however, wasn’t removed simply for listing the item. In an email to The Verge, Shopify spokesperson Caty Gray wrote:
All merchants are responsible for following the rules of our platform. This merchant did not engage in authentic commerce practices and violated our terms so we removed them from Shopify.
Last year, the e-commerce platform removed a clause banning “hateful content” from its acceptable use rules, reports Bloomberg.
Update February 11th: Added a response from Shopify.
