An Australian T-shirt company is in tatters after apparently offering offensive T-shirt designs for sale on Amazon.
Outrage and disgust erupted after the shirts were shown with slogans that glorified rape, murder and sex crimes.
The designs, printed on-demand by Solid Gold Bomb, include the phrases “Keep Calm and Rape A Lot”, “Keep Calm and Grope On” and “Keep Calm and Choke Her” among other variations of the rediscovered World War II propaganda slogan “Keep Calm and Carry On”.
Solid Gold Bomb founder Michael Fowler suspended the company’s account on Amazon after an uproar that saw the online retailer accused of profiting from domestic violence, The Sydney Morning Herald reports.
Fowler publicly apologized, claiming he had no idea the offensive T-shirts were on sale, but blamed a “computer error” for the offensive designs.
He explained that he wrote a “three-line script” that would harness electronic dictionaries and verb lists to automatically generate phrases for the shirts.
“As a father, husband, brother and son, I would never promote such product… this was never my intention and I am extremely sorry for the trouble this carelessness caused, he wrote in his apology message posted in Solid Gold Bomb’s website.
British conservative MP Caroline Dinenage said it was “absurd” to say the “ridiculous, mindless products” had been made in error, reports The Daily Mail.
