Teespring apologizes over racist T-shirt for sale

Combinator and raised close to $57 million from firms including Andreessen Horowitz and Khosla Ventures, according to Crunchbase. It’s built on a relatively simple model of taking a cut of all sales from the small entrepreneurs who use the site to create and sell items with a custom image or slogan.

The model has worked, in part, because these entrepreneurs can direct their products to niche groups on the Internet via Face- book and Twitter by easily sharing their designs via social sharing buttons on the Teespring item’s page.

Teespring in many ways is just like a social media platform itself, said Melissa Arnoff, a crisis communications specialist based in Washington D.C. “You can share any idea you want — even if the shirt’s not printed yet, you see the image on the website. So it’s got many of the issues that social media platforms have. As in so many areas, it’s made ideas so accessible,” she said.

In the case of the “Black Women Are Trash,” some users on Facebook shared the Teespring item with each other. This was not a paid ad, which on Facebook feature the phrase, “sponsored content.”

Teespring wouldn’t say who was behind the campaign.

In its apology, Teespring said the content “does not reflect our values or our views as an organization and it violates our company policies. Our team has removed these items from our site and we’re monitoring closely to take down any other products that violate our content guidelines.”

The site’s content includes topics such as variants on the WWII slogan “Keep Calm and Carry On,” topical phrases, support items sold by groups and political messages. On Tuesday those included things such as hoodies that read “Only awesome Moms get hugged a lot” and mugs saying “Heaven help a fool who falls in love.” Other items included a shirt that read “I Support Louisiana Search and Rescue.”