Pure play e-tailer Amazon has pulled a line of T-shirts featuring slogans including ‘Keep Calm & Rape A Lot‘ after a flood of complaints.
US clothing company Solid Gold Bomb took responsibility for the designs, claiming that the slogan had been created via an automated process and had not intended to promote violence against women or cause offense.
Other slogans available via the Amazon website included ‘Keep Calm & Hit Her‘ though the e-tailer has now deleted these while continuing to feature details of Solid Gold Bomb products.
Fashion retailer Topman faced a similar backlash at the end of 2011 when a T-shirt caused outrage for allegedly promoting domestic violence and these were promptly removed from sale following a furore via social media.
An Amazon spokesperson confirmed to Sky News that the company had acted to remove the offending items from its site, commenting: “I can confirm that those items are not available for sale.”
Apologising for the error, Solid Gold Bomb Founder Michael Fowler explained that the company had worked to generate word lists for slogans and that the combination of words had been unintentional.
“We have never done such an activity deliberately and ask for understanding in the matter.
“It can happen, it happened and we are doing everything in our power around the clock the world over to correct the issue.
“Ultimately, it comes down to my error and I should singly accept repsonsibility for the mistake. Again, my sincere apologies for the unintended outcome.”
