FTA:

> Shopify President Harley Finkelstein told CNBC’s “Squawk on the Street” Tuesday that the website’s owners “had an entire day” to prove they weren’t violating the company’s policies, “which did not happen.”

I understand that they were given a day to prove they weren’t violating policies, but my point is that it seems pretty obvious Shopify is selectively enforcing its policies to shut down the store because they don’t like the shirt being sold. The policy is just a cover for the real reason.

I’m not arguing otherwise, but it wasn’t clear to me at all that that was your point.

Yeah. SHOP just doesn't wanna be pegged as being "too woke" under the current administration. All of tech is apparently scared of Trump, Musk, and their allies in SV and WS.

Shopify has never been a woke company - Shopify and their leaders have a history of defending hosting hateful content under the guise of freedom of speech.

Slightly off topic but this comment really underscores the complete loss of meaning of the word "woke" for me.

I'm not trying to say that was intentional/hostile or not, just that it just sticks out really significantly from the earlier days where it was more in line with "willing to see the reality of the country and not just a smoothed over view" (which is a sentiment shared across most polarization I can think of) and now is more about a label/badge about certain values.

Language is fascinating.

That's true. "Woke" has become a catch-all for logical, moral reasoning and behavior that in any way contradicts pure profit motive. I misused the term. And SHOP definitely was never a haven of actual woke corporate policy. But even slightly leaning towards woke = big trouble in the current political environment, even if it means condoning sale of hate speech or related goods.

I truly didn't mean to imply you were misusing it - I think it is super broad now and your usage, as you described, was relatively new for me (re: unbridled greed vs oppression).

I agree. That has always been a matter of corporate principal for SHOP. Now, they are leaning even more into their "free speech" farse, allowing almost anyone and anything that may generate sales. Partly because they know that political and public opinion recently leans towards less oversight, less moral scrutiny, and less enforcement.

"I would never sell a swastika tee because people could be physically harmed wearing it ... I love my fans and supporters," Kanye wrote on X before his account was disabled.

Shopify took down Yeezy, because it was listing a product he indicated he wasn’t actually going to ship.

B2B services companies generally won’t police content, because content moderation is highly subjective and companies care about the perceived reliability of vendors, especially business critical ones. While this particular instance might be obvious, the slippery slope does exist so companies will tend to avoid vendors who are anywhere near that slope.