Truth fucking hurts.

Asleep at the wheel - again.

Today we were rather shocked to have this item come to our attention today.



While incredibly insensitive, offensive and in Germany downright illegal to even look at, this handmade reproduction of a Nazi standard from right before WWII wasn't actually breaking any rules on Etsy. We were shocked to discover Etsy has NOTHING in the TOU about racist, discriminatory (or Nazi propaganda) items being for sale on it's site.

We at EB went on the offense on twitter against this offensive item. Others who saw it on our twitter sent it up in the forums, with predictable results. It took off all across twitter, even to those who DON'T know what Etsy is. Will Etsy notice the major fluff this caused? Of course not.

The saddest part is Ebay has rules against such specific items even being listed. And they aren't messing around with the punishment or doing it. Artfire has a rule against such items. So does 1000Markets. So why doens't Etsy?

Just goes to prove how much they look at the competition, how shallow they think, and how they just don't give a damn as long as they get those dimes!

It took god knows how many flags, tweets, retweets, and posts on he forums still took TWO HOURS after it went public to finally get taken down. I guess you shouldn't post major gaffs of the TOU during naptime.

So our next question for Matt for the next "chatt" is: when will Etsy be adapting the terms of it's competitors when it comes to offensive, racist and discriminatory materials such as this - handmade or not. When will Etsy finally open their eyes?


ADDEMDUM: June 9th, 2009, 6:30pm:
Just received a comment that Etsy has finally added the following to the prohibited section of the TOU: "Items that promote or glorify hatred, racial or religious intolerance"

Thanks, Etsy, for finally doing the right thing.