UltraViolet, MoveOn.org, Care2, SumOfUs, The Representation Project, Sleeping Giants Gather More than One Million Petition Signatures Urging Amazon to Drop Breitbart
Coalition Urges Amazon.com to Join 2,000+ Companies & Drop Right-Wing Website that Promotes White Nationalism, Violence, and Misogyny
Petitions from UltraViolet, MoveOn.org, Care2, and SumOfUs are demanding Amazon.com sever ties immediately with the right-wing news outlet Breitbart over Breitbart’s promotion of white supremacy, violence, and misogyny. The coalition, which has gathered more than one million petition signatures, argues that Breitbart is a platform for hateful rhetoric and key player in the rise of the ‘alt right’.
Amazon
View the petitions here:
act.weareultraviolet.org/sign/amazon-breitbart/
https://actions.sumofus.org/a/amazon-stop-investing-in-hate
With ads regularly appearing on the website, Amazon.com is one of Breitbart’s most visible and prolific sponsors. In November 2016, an anonymous group called Sleeping Giants launched a Twitter account to let companies know about their presence on Breitbart. Since then, they have successfully convinced more than 2,000 companies to drop their ads from the alt-right site. Amazon.com has yet to comment on its relationship with Breitbart.
“Our campaign started with the intention of letting companies know that they were appearing next to Breitbart’s inflammatory articles,” said the founder of Sleeping Giants. “While most companies, including Visa, Mars and Kellogg’s, were thankful for this information and were quick to take their brands out of this harmful environment, Amazon has continued to advertise on Breitbart unabated, thereby supporting this incendiary and hateful content.”
“Breitbart publishes completely fake news, including stories that blame Mexican immigrants for rape, Muslim refugees for crime in Europe, Planned Parenthood for killing ‘up to half a Holocaust,’ and transgender women for sexual assault,” said Shaunna Thomas, co-founder at UltraViolet. “Hundreds of advertisers have already cut ties with Breitbart, yet Amazon is still giving money to this purveyor of racist and sexist ‘news’, which is partly to blame for mainstreaming white supremacy.”
“Plain and simple — Breitbart is a white nationalist website formerly run by Trump adviser Steve Bannon. It’s racist, sexist, and spreads hate against Muslims,” said Anna Galland, executive director at MoveOn.org “Breitbart regularly has headlines like ‘Birth control makes women unattractive and crazy’ and ‘The Confederate flag proclaims a glorious heritage.’ It is way outside of the American mainstream, even in these currently polarizing times.
“It’s well past time for Amazon to stop supporting Breitbart’s hateful rhetoric. We urge Amazon to remove their ads from Breitbart.com and adopt a policy to ban advertising on any website that promotes this caliber of racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia, and xenophobia .”
“We strongly believe in free speech and recognize Breitbart’s right to publish whatever type of content they like,” explained Julie Mastrine, Manager of Brand Marketing and PR at Care2. “But corporate America should also give thought to how they spend their money and what businesses they support. This is about freedom of association and responsibility.”
“Together, we’re demanding that the companies we support are aligned with our values and, at the very least, do not support hate. We cannot allow the likes of Amazon to privilege money over democracy, profit over civil society.” said Jennifer Siebel Newsom, Founder and CEO of The Representation Project. “We must take away Breitbart’s microphone through ensuring not one penny of ours ends up in their hands.”
“With a long-standing company policy that values diversity and inclusion, it’s shocking to see that Amazon.com is still supporting Breitbart’s brand of violence, bigotry and hate with paid advertisements,” said Emma Pullman, lead campaign strategist at SumOfUs. “While Amazon.com chose to speak up against Trump’s travel ban of seven predominantly Muslim nations, it fails to live by its principles of acceptable advertising by not pulling its support from this dangerous white supremacist website.”
