Shopify wins lawsuit, RageOn website shut down for allegedly inciting violent hatred

According to foreign media reports on March 2, Shopify won the first round of lawsuits against RageOn, an independent retailer.

It is reported that RageOn used the independent website opened by Shopify to sell clothing that incites hatred and violence, such as those marked with QAnon, Proud Boys and Nazi images, which violated the Shopify platform's fair use policy (AUP).

RageOn is a Cleveland-based company with 25 employees. Its online independent website allows users to create and sell their own "realistic" clothing , and can use RageOn's "all-over" printing technology to cover the entire surface of a T-shirt, sweater, socks, shoes or pillow. Many of RageOn's online stores are filled with clothing printed with images of cats, unicorns and aliens.

(RageOn website product example)

RageOn claims to have more than 1 million users and has been a Shopify customer since 2013.

However, on October 6 last year , Shopify sent a notice to RageOn, warning that 21 products sold in its online store used Confederate flag patterns or were linked to QAnon, Proud Boys and the far-right Boogaloo movement.

RageOn founder and CEO Mike Krilivsky acknowledged at the time that the site had an issue and turned to Shopify for help in coming up with a solution to prevent certain users from uploading objectionable content to its site.

However, just a few days later , Shopify sent RageOn another notice exposing other violations on the site, and Shopify officials warned Krilivsky that he was responsible for all content users posted to the store.

Then in November last year , Shopify sent another notice informing of another 35 illegal products sold on its website.

Seeing that RageOn ’s violation case had made no progress, Shopify finally sent RageOn an “ultimatum” in January 2021 listing more of its violations: if such problems were found again, RageOn’s company account would be terminated immediately.

Then, Shopify unilaterally ended its partnership with the company on February 17.

Mike Krilivsky was really panicked. He posted on Twitter to ask Shopify CEO Tobi Lütke for more time . He said: "This is crazy. I have been one of your biggest supporters for the past 12-13 years!"

Eventually, the matter was brought to court. RageOn 's lawyers argued in court that Shopify 's measures were too harsh and that RageOn had taken measures to remove the offending content from the website through automatic detection software and two supervisory employees . RageOn also said that the scale of the website's violations was small and only involved a small number of users , and Shopify had no reason to terminate the contract.

However, Ontario Superior Court Judge Peter Cavanagh said that RageOn 's arguments were not enough to convince the court to issue an injunction against Shopify, and that RageOn had not yet demonstrated its ability to prove that it had not violated Shopify's AUP policy . And there was evidence that despite repeated warnings, RageOn still failed to remove the content that violated the AUP injunction from its website .

So Judge Cavanagh ruled on Tuesday that RageOn can seek e-commerce support other than Shopify.

The lawsuit is being closely watched because it will test Shopify's ability to enforce its policies, which prohibit customers from selling products that incite hatred , violence or terrorism.

Tobi Lütke initially believed that Shopify , as an e-commerce platform, had no business getting involved in political affairs discussing restrictions on free speech , until Shopify came under fire in 2017 for supporting online sales for the far- right news site Breitbart .

Shopify therefore updated its AUP policy in November 2018 to ensure that its platform is not used to incite hatred or violence , and updated the policy again in April 2020 .

Independent website sellers should also pay more attention to the relevant policies of the platform, and not violate the platform's red line for temporary interests, which will end up with their store being closed!

Shopify

AUP Policy