Teespring has removed a rainbow swastika T-shirt from its site and says it is adding layers of oversight to prevent people from offering offensive designs for sale.

The company allows anyone to post a T-shirt design, and if it sells Teespring will produce it. The designer keeps a portion of the sales.

An American company, KA Designs, was selling T-shirts and sweatshirts with rainbow-colored swastikas on them, re-branding the emblem of hatred as a “symbol of love and peace.”

A Facebook video promoting the marketing effort says:

“This is a swastika. It’s 5000 years old. It’s a symbol of peace. It’s a symbol of love. It’s a symbol of infinity. It’s a symbol of life. But one day nazism. They took the swastika, rotated it by 45 degrees, and turned it into hatred, and turned it into fear, and turned it into war, and turned it into racism, and turned it into power. They stigmatized the swastika forever. They won. They limited our freedom. Or maybe not? The swastika is coming back together with peace, together with love, together with respect, together with freedom.”

After images of the shirt circulated on social media, Jewish groups and others pushed for a boycott of the site. Teespring says it didn’t sell any of the design and didn’t profit from it.

Teespring says it typically uses keyword detection, image recognition and human reviews to keep offensive designs out, but will add layers of review. Other shirts featuring swastikas and images of Adolf Hitler were still on the site Monday afternoon, but were removed by Tuesday.

(Nat Golden – YWN)