After racist abuse appeared on multiple listings on the UK website of Amazon, the e-commerce giant has blamed the incident on a "bad actor".
The abuse has now been removed. It had appeared on the screens of users when they researched the online market place of the company for Apple AirPods and similar products. While it is not clear how long the abuse had been on the site, there has been massive criticism of the incident on Twitter with screenshots and video grabs of the abuse being shared widely.
"We are removing the images in question and have taken action on the bad actor," Amazon said.
The company did not provide any details of the number of products that defaced by the abuse or how long had the abuse been visible to users or any further details of the "bad actor".
The abuse "needs to be acknowledged, removed, explained, apologised for asap. Being Black right now is hard enough; we don't need to be called the N- word while shopping online, to boot", tweeted Nadine White, a journalist for the Huffington Post.
The abuse should have been removed by the company in minutes, said another tweet. "They're still on Amazon UK. Extraordinarily poor site administration," the tweet said during early hours of Sunday.
Third-party retailers are also allowed to sell goods through Amazon’s website and about half its retail revenues are made in this manner.
However in recent times, there has been close scrutiny of the Amazon Marketplace platform. Concerns about counterfeit goods appearing in the listings were raised recently and the company was severely criticized during the novel coronavirus pandemic about the proliferation of price inflation on the platform with the company not doing enough to stop it.
The "notorious markets" report on marketplaces that are known for counterfeiting and piracy concerns of the US trade regulator added five Amazon e-commerce websites, including the UK, in April this year.
That US move was however refuted strongly by Amazon and the company said in a statement that "this purely political act is another example of the administration using the US government to advance a personal vendetta against Amazon".
(Source:www.bbc.com)
The abuse has now been removed. It had appeared on the screens of users when they researched the online market place of the company for Apple AirPods and similar products. While it is not clear how long the abuse had been on the site, there has been massive criticism of the incident on Twitter with screenshots and video grabs of the abuse being shared widely.
"We are removing the images in question and have taken action on the bad actor," Amazon said.
The company did not provide any details of the number of products that defaced by the abuse or how long had the abuse been visible to users or any further details of the "bad actor".
The abuse "needs to be acknowledged, removed, explained, apologised for asap. Being Black right now is hard enough; we don't need to be called the N- word while shopping online, to boot", tweeted Nadine White, a journalist for the Huffington Post.
The abuse should have been removed by the company in minutes, said another tweet. "They're still on Amazon UK. Extraordinarily poor site administration," the tweet said during early hours of Sunday.
Third-party retailers are also allowed to sell goods through Amazon’s website and about half its retail revenues are made in this manner.
However in recent times, there has been close scrutiny of the Amazon Marketplace platform. Concerns about counterfeit goods appearing in the listings were raised recently and the company was severely criticized during the novel coronavirus pandemic about the proliferation of price inflation on the platform with the company not doing enough to stop it.
The "notorious markets" report on marketplaces that are known for counterfeiting and piracy concerns of the US trade regulator added five Amazon e-commerce websites, including the UK, in April this year.
That US move was however refuted strongly by Amazon and the company said in a statement that "this purely political act is another example of the administration using the US government to advance a personal vendetta against Amazon".
(Source:www.bbc.com)
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