I’d say no on that. When I buy something off Ebay, I’m under no illusion that this is an item produced by Ebay. Same with Etsy. They’re platforms, not branded stores.
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Ah, well I think that’s a pretty ridiculous expectation as there is literally no way it could ever possibly work, and thus what you are really calling for is the end of all online large scale auction/sales brokerage sites. I am going to humbly disagree, as I use them all the time and like having them as an option.
You are certainly entitled to your opinion, but it’s about as workable as these European copyright initiatives posted about on bb constantly (hint: not workable).
Should they be required to take them down right away, if it violates the company’s code of conduct for resellers? Absolutely. Should they investigate? Yes. Wal•Mart seems to have done exactly this the moment they were notified.
Internet outrage FTW! 
Again, Wal•Mart’s listings make quite clear whether it’s a Wal•Mart item, or third party. It’s, like, right there under the description. It’s pretty tough to miss. I feel consumers should bear some responsibility in, like, reading a few basic words in front of their faces, but hey, color me crazy.
I’ve never shopped online with Walmart, so I’ll defer to your assessment. 
In principle I completely agree with the buyer taking some responsibility for at least bare-minimum due diligence…
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Here are what third-party-listed throw pillows look like on Wal•Mart’s results page. They present filters (facets) for refining search results to items being sold by Wal•Mart, and all the third party resellers who have results within a category, so it’s very easy to limit searches to actual Wal•Mart items.
Once you drill into a product listing, if there are, for instance, size and color options, you must select those before it then shows that it’s coming from a third party. If no options are available, the third party label is up by default the moment you land on the product page. Like that, oh, heh, sex pillow listed there. For that one, the page for that item shows homegarden right on it, very close to where you hit the button to add it to your cart. For those, uh, more traditional throw pillows, where there are different colors and sizes available, you have to select size and color, and then homegarden pops up right near the add to cart button.
It could be a tad more obvious – but it’s pretty obvious.
“keep calm and carry on”<–actual slogan devised in case the nazis invaded the british mainland.
“keep calm and knit on”<-- slogan stripped of its historical context.
“keep calm and rape on”<-- slogan repurposed by soulless algorithm.
This seems as intentional as wearing Fred Perry, Lonsdale and other covert logos. Whoever’s responsible knew exactly what they were doing.
So let’s play that out. What kind of a person do you think did this, and what was their motive? Versus random designer in some Asian country pasting clip art and either not noticing or giving af that this motif was included? Because frankly the latter strikes me as more likely versus any dark conspiratorial theory, but try me! What do you think was afoot?!
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People are educated about our dark history.
Someone approves these products before they’re mass produced.
Mass production of a logo is an effective way of broadcasting ideology.
If the person didn’t care that this logo was being mass produced, it seems similar to when people looked the other way when war crimes were committed.
But what was the intent, according to your theory that this was intentional? Fool people into buying throw pillows with swastikas and — make people upset?
I don’t know. Any publicity is good publicity! An icon or logo proliferates ideology whether it’s subconscious or not. With everything that’s been going on in the world, this swinging pendulum into the realm of the alt-right and to think that someone just saw this design and thought, Meh!, and was a simple oversight seems to me unlikely. Someone being lost in translation and printing a t-shirt with a taboo phrase is pretty common, but a symbol is clear across cultures. World history repeated.
I really, really doubt this is an example of spreading racism, such as the President of the USA himself and his minions, who excuse white power constantly. Could this be an alt-right troll on Wal-Mart? Yes, there’s a chance of that. There’s also a good chance it was a stupid fuck-up.
I tend to look for vileness where it’s plenty obvious. There’s more than enough of that to scrutinize these days. I see Nazi stuff for sale in antique shops, it doesn’t freak me out at all. And this is coming from a guy who had whole branches of the family tree lopped off by the Nazis.
I’m on your side.
I appreciate your questioning my position and encouraging dialogue and not a serious debate. I’m just wired this way and am naturally skeptical of these kinds of oversights when there are still living breathing deniers.
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I can’t remember how many times in the last 2 years Walmart has issued the SAME excuse, “This XYZ item was listed by a third-party seller on our online marketplace. We regularly scan our marketplace for these types of items, but, unfortunately, the offensive image/item wasn’t visible and we were not aware of it until the customer reached out. We removed the item immediately and are reviewing the seller’s assortment.”
It’s NEVER their fault and they blame the VOLUME of the items they offer. Ironic that every single item Walmart offers has to go through a negotiation before Walmart agrees to list the item. They know what they’re selling.
eBay have frequently taken down listings of mine because they ran foul of the trademark protection bots - e.g. I’m not allowed to sell a pair of Evisu jeans I own in case they’re counterfeit, even though they’re not, they’re just remarkably ugly. If they can stop me selling my ill-judged pants, they can stop people selling their ill-judged Nazi kitsch.
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But that would require a description (text or photographic) that even slightly made it clear that this was an aspect of the product.
Quite possibly, it’s not a perfect analogy, but someone, somewhere was the buyer for whichever outfit is selling through Walmart, and someone, somewhere is the Walmart drone who approves the sellers, so they ought to be capable of a modicum of Nazi filtering.
Considering his rather icy stage persona, I’m dubious.
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I’m really starting to think a number of folks in this thread only read the headline of the piece.
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“But it really wasn’t Wal-Mart’s fault”
That’s the defining characteristic of algorithmic cruelty, isn’t it? There just isnt anyone to blame for it.
Of course there are optics, and responsibilities, and the cleaning up of messes…if its deemed cost effective to do so, of course. Counterexamples abound, where the responsible legal entity correctly guessed that the fallout would be far less expensive than making it right.
Consumers make that choice so much easier when we say, “it’s not their fault”
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