Shopify Took Down Kanye West’s Nazi Store but Not for the Obvious Reason ⇥ thelogic.co

James Temperton and Murad Hemmadi, the Logic:

Shopify’s general counsel said the company took down musician Kanye West’s online store because of the potential for fraud, not because it was selling a Nazi T-shirt, an internal staff announcement obtained by The Logic reveals.

In the message, which was posted on Shopify’s Slack Tuesday morning, general counsel Jess Hertz said the swastika-emblazoned T-shirt listed for sale by West was “a stunt” and “not a good faith attempt to make money.” This, Hertz added, “brought with it the real risk of fraud.” It was for this reason, she added, that the store had been closed.

Here is the thing: choosing not to support Nazis, even tacitly, is a pretty comfortable stance to take. You are in good company if you just say no to Nazi stuff. Nobody gets points for providing infrastructure to sell Nazi merch. What Shopify’s general counsel is indicating is that it would be happy to operate this store so long as orders for these shirts would actually be fulfilled.