eBay quickly removed World War II-themed products after a large number of people protested

According to reports, eBay's US site has been protested by a large number of people for selling items related to World War II, including 442 military medical kits used by Japanese-American soldiers, paintings of the Manzanar concentration camp and other products.

It is reported that this is not the first time that such items have been sold as commodities. As early as 2015, an auction house in New Jersey sold 450 such items, including paintings, photos and handmade jewelry. At that time, many Japanese Americans protested. After that, the auction house withdrew these items and they were eventually acquired by the Japanese American National Museum.

This is not the first time that similar products have appeared on eBay. In 2018, Israeli consumers discovered that some e-commerce giants were selling anti-Semitic products, including rabbinic (Jewish scholar) clothing, pictures of rabbis greedily counting money, and Star of David (Jewish symbol) patches engraved with "Jude".

After the incident, eBay's US team learned about the behavior and removed the product from the shelves. eBay said that the website prohibits the sale of offensive products. Although the seller's account was not banned, he had been warned that he had violated the website's terms.

When asked why the buyer posted offensive items and his account was not cancelled, eBay said that in this case, the product will be removed from the website, but the seller's account will not be automatically closed. eBay also confirmed that there will be no more related incidents in the future, but in fact, after checking eBay's policy on the sale of Nazi-related products, it was found that these products were still sold on the website.

After these World War II-related items were found for sale on eBay, they immediately caused an uproar. After 59 Japanese American organizations and 29 American citizens signed a petition, eBay immediately deleted and removed these items. The petition stated that works created from human suffering are not collectibles, and items made and preserved from the incarceration of Japanese Americans during World War II should not be auctioned as commodities.

Japanese American organizations said other items from the Japanese incarceration period are still being sold on eBay, but eBay's removal of these items is an important first step, and they are continuing to work with eBay to apply its cultural relics policy to similar items. Inoue, founder of the Japanese American Alliance, also said that members of his group plan to discuss with eBay the possibility of creating an algorithm that can flag violations of company policy on the front end.

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