Amazon pulled all merchandise containing the slogan “Stop the Steal” from its online store, according to Reclaim the Net.
Thousands of T-shirts, hats, stickers, masks and other products related to the “Stop the Steal” movement disappeared from Amazon’s website this week even though they were recently available to purchase.
Many of these products still appear if searched for, but cannot be accessed. Users who click on the products are now redirected to a page that states, “Sorry, we couldn’t find that page.”
Archived versions of the Google cache for these product pages confirm they were available to purchase as recently as Jan. 12, Reclaim the Net reported.
The removal of these products follow Amazon’s decision to ban all QAnon merchandise as well.
The company said vendors who attempt to continue to sell such products could be banned from its site, citing its terms of service, which prohibit products that “promote, incite, or glorify hate or violence toward any person or group.”
Facebook is also censoring “Stop the Steal” content, removing a massive group page with hundreds of thousands of members and blocking all content that contains the phrase.
“We began preparing for Inauguration Day last year. But our planning took on new urgency after last week’s violence in Washington, D.C., and we are treating the next two weeks as a major civic event,” Facebook wrote in a blog post.
“We are now removing content containing the phrase ‘stop the steal’ under our Coordinating Harm policy from Facebook and Instagram,” it said.
The company claimed misinformation about the election could incite violence, pointing to last Wednesday’s display at the U.S. Capitol building.
“We’ve been allowing robust conversations related to the election outcome and that will continue,” Facebook said.
“But with continued attempts to organize events against the outcome of the US presidential election that can lead to violence, and use of the term by those involved in Wednesday’s violence in DC, we’re taking this additional step in the lead up to the inauguration,” it added.
