Lauren O’Neill

In January, Amazon changed their logo from a shopping cart to a piece of blue tape over the Amazon “smile.” However, iOS users in the United Kingdom, Spain, Italy and Netherlands began to associate the folded blue tape with Adolf Hitler’s moustache.

The moustache aroused much controversy over social media, and led people to get in heated debates about tape.

In response to the backlash, an Amazon spokesperson commented, “We designed the new icon to spark anticipation, excitement, and joy when customers start their shopping journey on their phone, just as they do when they see our boxes on their doorstep.” Amazon subsequently changed the design of the logo.

Amazon never directly stated whether their quick logo change was in response to the criticism, they just silently changed it within days of the backlash.

In a New York Times article, Kara S. Alaimo, an Associate Professor at Hofstra University, criticized Amazon because she claimed that companies should be “bending over backward to consider all the ways people could misuse or misinterpret their logos prior to launch.”

This is not the first instance that Amazon has come under fire for Nazi branded insignia. In 2015, there were posters on trains in New York for the Amazon Prime Show called, “Man in the High Castle,” and the posters contained swastikas, triggering a lot of outrage.

In an article from The Guardian, Mayor Bill de Blasio called on Amazon to get rid of the advertisements that he called “irresponsible and offensive.” Amazon was then forced to remove the advertisements.