Twitter users on Tuesday began drawing attention to shirts featuring various versions of the phrase “Joe and the Ho,” referring to the Democratic nominees for president and vice president, former vice president Biden and U.S. Senator Harris.
Several such shirts were still mentioned on the site on Wednesday morning, but links to the products are no longer active. Starting at 12:30 p.m. ET on Wednesday, a Amazon (AMZN) spokesman said the products have all been removed for violating sales guidelines.
“All merchants must follow our sales guidelines and those who do not will be subject to action including potential termination of their account,” the spokesman said in a statement. “These products have been removed.”
In addition to selling its own products on its website, Amazon also acts as a marketplace where third party, independent sellers can purchase items.
Demetria Edwards, a Arkansas lawyer, sent an email to Jeff Bezos, CEO of Amazon, on Tuesday to remove the products. Edwards, who shared this email with CNN Business, called the items “racist, sexist and offensive merchandise”, and a “renewed attempt to demean, devalue, denigrate and degrade Biden and Harris. Edwards said they did not receive a direct response from Amazon, and it is not clear if ‘Edwards’ letter led to the removal of the products.
This is not the first time that Amazon has had to remove unusual products. Earlier this month, Amazon removed shoes for sale by a third-party seller who had picked up a racial slur from their website after being sued by a British lawmaker. And in March, Amazon said it pulled more than 1 million products from its site for pricing or fake advertising during the pandemic.
