Amazon removed an offensive campaign which utilized Nazi symbols following public backlash.
Amazon’s offensive campaign on the NY subway. (Amir Levy/Flash90)
Online retail giant Amazon has decided to withdraw an extensive ad campaign featured throughout the New York subway system that showed US flags overlaid with German Nazi and Japanese Imperial symbols, Buzzfeed reported on Tuesday. It was a spokesperson for the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, not Amazon, who made the announcement.
Passengers were shocked on Tuesday to discover the ads plastered on the New York City subway chairs, including New York city assemblyman Dov Hikind, a Brooklyn native and son of Holocaust survivors, who called on holiday shoppers to say “no” to Amazon this season.
“Amazon knows exactly what they are doing,” Hikind said, according to the New York Observer. “The pain they are causing by plastering the subway with Nazi regalia is disgusting.”
Many critics noted that Holocaust survivors were forced to ride on the subway on Tuesday along with the suggestive Nazi imagery. Some noted the irreverence of the ads appearing on a train.
One of the ads showed a US flag with the white stars replaced with the Nazi eagle emblem, or the Rheichsadler, with a cross instead of a swastika. Another showed a vague mashup of the US and Japanese Rising Sun flags, the latter of which, unlike the Nazi flag in Germany, can still be flown legally in Japan today.
The new Amazon series, “The Man in the High Castle,” based on Philip K. Dick’s 1962 novel of the same name, is set in an alternative world that depicts life in America after World War II which was won by the Nazis.
Needless to say, users on social media were up in arms.
Free speech advocate Pamela Gellar, notable for helping to organized a Mohammed cartoon-drawing contest, slammed Amazon and the MTA, which banned her political group’s ads when it axed all political ads earlier this year.”Seriously??” she tweeted, “MTA Bigots Plaster Nazi Flag Ads on NYC Subway But BAN ALL AFDI Ads: Despite having won numerous legal free …”
Others called Amazon to be ashamed and called the campaign “appalling, incredibly tone-deaf & offensive ad campaign.”
By: The Algemeiner
Bring Joy to Israeli Soldiers - Send Winter Care Packages!
We are honored to thank the young men and women of the IDF who risk their lives every day to defend the citizens of Israel.
Join us in sending winter care packages and personal notes of support to Israeli soldiers who are out in the cold all day.
Warm up a soldier's heart with essential winter wear including fleece jackets, hats, gloves and more. Keep an entire unit warm!
THE SOLDIERS REALLY APPRECIATE YOUR LOVE AND CONCERN!
Click Here to Send Your Gift and Personal Note to Israeli Soldiers