Banned products appear on eBay and even appear in promotional ads?!

Following QAnon, more products from nationalist organizations appeared on eBay.

According to the overseas media DIGDAY, after January 6, some e-commerce platforms have promised to take measures against products that promote hate speech and products related to extreme right-wing ideas, and to remove or ban them from sale. However, related products are still being sold on the eBay platform.

Search results show that items with marks, logos and phrases from far-right nationalist groups , including gun parts, are widely available on eBay, including many promoted by eBay's advertising platform .

The word "boogaloo" also still automatically appears in military search results on eBay's search bar, including a result for a shirt with George Washington holding a gun and wearing a Hawaiian shirt, a symbol of the far-right boogaloo boys. Similar products also appear in eBay's self-service advertising promotions .

Boogaloo is a loosely organized American far-right, anti-government, and extremist movement that has also been described as a militia movement. Boogaloo adherents use the term "boogaloo" to refer to "a violent uprising against the federal government or left-wing political opposition," with speculation that violent uprisings will follow government gun confiscations. Heavily armed boogaloo members often identify themselves by wearing Hawaiian shirts and military uniforms .

Not only far-right products, but also products related to the far-left organization Antifa ("anti-fascism") frequently appear on eBay, including shirts, stickers and flags.

After media reports, eBay said it began to review and remove a large number of related products, saying that eBay had banned products related to boogalo, Oath Keepers, and Three Percenters after the riots. Although automatic screening programs and keyword reviews can prevent most banned products from being listed on eBay, there are always some that slip through the net.

eBay also said that promoted items go through the same filtering process as all other items, and items that violate the promotional material policy cannot be advertised. But in fact, sellers can choose to make their products promoted by paying an additional fee on top of eBay's 8% fee, so far-right products still appear in promotional ads, and eBay has not responded to this.

“eBay is extracting keywords from sellers’ listing descriptions and matching them to anything typed into the search bar,” said Stuart Clay, associate director of marketplace strategic services at Tinuiti. “But with promoted ads, sellers will not be providing any keywords to eBay.”

Since we cannot obtain keywords, we can only work on the image filtering system. However, experts say that the image filtering system is not advanced enough to be 100% accurate. Many people can see the clues of the image at a glance, but the system cannot recognize them. "This is a tricky problem. Frankly speaking, I think it cannot be overcome."

When asked if these listings could be a problem with eBay's platform or if they simply haven't banned certain keywords, Clay said it's possible that both are possible. If items from far-right groups are still available on eBay, then eBay's blocked listings may not have been updated yet.

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