Amazon seller Chuck Gaffney shared information about his storefront being false-flagged by those who complained to Amazon that the anime figurines he was selling were exploitative and equivalent to child pornography, which resulted in Amazon removing the figurines from the store.
It started with Gaffney responding to a tweet about Sega patching a physics bug in Hatsune Miku: Project DIVA Mega Mix that saw the girls’ skirts infrequently pop up and expose their underwear. Gaffney noted that the people who reported the bug to have it fixed were likely the same people who targeted his shop.
Might be the same asshats I’ve been noticing on Amazon.Out of nowhere a few months ago,old Good Smile Company & other official Miku listings from my store(& all sellers) got removed from Amazon; wrongfully claiming it was CP. A suspicious mass flagging of all anime products also
— Chuck Gaffney (@princetrunks) February 29, 2020
Some people question Gaffney if he had any evidence about the listings being removed by Amazon, and Gaffney replied that he did indeed have proof.
Yes. I can look in my emails and send you over the listings. It might have been a year ago with the Miku ones (my day job makes me forget the time) but just recently there was another GSC figure out of nowhere. Same thing, claiming it’s CP when it’s totally not.
— Chuck Gaffney (@princetrunks) February 29, 2020
On February 29th, 2020 Gaffney posted up a tweet with the images of the anime figures that were removed by Amazon.
Here’s the second most recent one, was two figures.. one a tame K-ON figure of all things.
Max Factory K-ON: Tsumugi Kotobuki Figma
Sora no Otoshimono: Forte Nymph PVC Figure by AMI pic.twitter.com/6CPvSIHJSe
— Chuck Gaffney (@princetrunks) February 29, 2020
If you’re unable to see the letter, you can check out the image below.
The relevant part of the letter reads…
“[…] This item has been identified as one that is prohibited for sale or listing on Amazon. Amazon does not allow the sale of products that promote child exploitation or depict children or characters resembling children in a sexually suggestive manner. […]”
The two figures include Max Factory’s K-ON: Tsumugi Kotobuki Figma and the PVC figure of Sora no Otoshimono: Forte Nymph from AMI.
The news quickly caught the attention of YouTuber ThatUmbrellaGuy.
But it was a lot more than just those two that got axed.
Gaffney followed up with a screenshot of e-mails from Amazon dating back to 2015, where they classified a number of anime figures as “child exploitation”, not unlike Valve banning a number of anime-themed games over the years for the same reason.
YouTuber Hero Hei covered the topic as well, along with the images of some of the figures that were pulled from Amazon.
This is just an example of a single seller suffering from this kind of targeting, but there are probably lots of others out there who have encountered similar issues that just haven’t taken their case to social media.
Gaffney plans on bringing his site back and selling his figurines directly from his website.
My main site is down ATM (https://t.co/zbIWPOl1JT)
Here’s the Amazon front which is sadly tumbleweeds at the moment 🙁
Long story but I hope to eventually bring back my once fully loaded anime store :/ https://t.co/cN5T4xpVj9— Chuck Gaffney (@princetrunks) March 4, 2020
(Thanks for the news tip Xavier-Renegade Angel)
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