(Reuters) – Amazon.com Inc. said on Monday that it was working to remove some QAnon products from its online market, citing policies that prohibit offensive items or other inappropriate content.
The world’s largest online retailer was investigated for selling clothes with the QAnon badge and related books days after QAnon’s followers joined the US Capitol siege last week, which left five dead.
Supporters of QAnon promoted conspiracies on social networks based on web posts by the anonymous “Q”, citing internal knowledge of President Donald Trump’s government. This includes the baseless claim that Trump is secretly fighting a conspiracy of child predators, including prominent Democrats and Hollywood figures.
Amazon’s move follows a decision to stop hosting Parler’s web content, the social network used by some Trump supporters. The company claimed that Parler violated the terms of service for its cloud computing division, Amazon Web Services (AWS), by failing to cope with the escalating violence on social media. Parler sued AWS on Monday in response.
Amazon had previously been criticized for – and removed lists of – products that promoted extremist views, such as books that denied the Holocaust.
Jeffrey Dastin reporting in San Francisco; Additional reporting by Bhargav Acharya, Elizabeth Culliford and Katie Paul; Christopher Cushing’s Edition