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Today is my last day at Shopify. I joined in 2016 and had the time of my life, great engineering and people, they brought me to Canada and for that I’ll be eternally grateful. But they’re also proudly hosting swastikas for sale, taking the idea of “make commerce better for everyone” a little too literal, at any cost. It pains me to leave this way but I can’t let my name be associated with this in good conscience.
If you want to sell Swastikas online, Shopify will be happy to facilitate that.
Here's a case study on how this merchant's revenue increased after moving to Shopify: https://www.shopify.com/ca/case-studies/international-military-antiques
Here's a sample of the products they sell: https://www.ima-usa.com/products/original-german-wwii-usgi-captured-signed-association-of-allotment-gardeners-flag-from-nurnberg-46-x-54
Make this make sense.
@eljojo Sorry mate, unfortunately the pattern for bigtech seems to be "as long as we make money". Similar nonsense on Amazon profiting from massive counterfeit sales :(
Gulotta @eljojo I left because of CEO behavior and hosting maga bs and I’d never go back for the same reasons
@eljojo Huge respect. 
Not just for leaving, but for speaking out. That couldn't have been easy.
@eljojo thank you for speaking up 
@bitboxer thank YOU Bodo for speaking up. You’ve always been vocal about their actions and it definitely helped me shape my decision/opinion. 
@eljojo I hope you can find something much better!
@eljojo Congrats! Looking forward to our next chat ;).
@skade see you in 8 years! (hopefully sooner)
@eljojo Intending to job-hop for the next few years?
@eljojo There's a kind of strange irony, to me, that if you *say* you're selling swastikas, take money from white supremacists, then don't actually give them the swastikas, Shopify will ban you.
But if you actually do sell the swastikas, then that's cool.
Literally saying "we're fine supporting Nazis so long as they're real, legit Nazis".
@brettk this is exactly the thing. I asked myself how hard it’d be to find such merchants, turns out not hard at all! https://ruby.social/@eljojo/114117910697938532
@eljojo Lots of respect to you. Let‘s catch up some time.
@exterm thanks Philip, most definitely! 
@eljojo What is so frustrating is that it's the most accessible interface when it comes to assistive technology. It's so frustrating.
@mcourcel i know, their accessibility team is incredible, I had many amazing chats and learned a tonne from them. Same with their infra, it’s just the best e-commerce infra in the world.
@eljojo aww that is disappointing, I was hoping it would finally provide meaningful competition to amazon
I mean, it might still do that, but it doesn't matter if they are nazis too
Ⓥ
(he/him) @TuffyPuff @eljojo For handmade/artisan stuff, check out @coopartisans !
@chiraag @eljojo @coopartisans I love artisans.coop! I bought some things from there last year and they were great.
@chiraag @TuffyPuff @coopartisans amazing! following now!
@eljojo ostrás! End of an era! Me acuerdo de aquellos días primeros… anda que no ha llovido! Espero que todo te vaya bien!
@eljojo hey! Sorry it ended like this, for taking a stand.
@eljojo@ruby.social
Shopify is run by know #MaplaMAGAts
You don’t need to reply however I am curious why there weren’t some of those unexpected bugs in the system where certain products accidentally got marked out of stock or not for sale or reported but the ticket got lost and customer support wasn’t able to find the product in question?
Big companies lose things and data gets accidentally corrupted all the time. Plus customer support is terribly overworked and slow. The system is a mystery.
@eljojo
Thanks for sharing...wow....
@eljojo Thank you.
@eljojo Tough move to make. But hugely respect you for standing by your principles.
@eljojo You made the right choice, but I wish circumstances weren’t as they were for you to have to make it!
Wherever you land next is going to be lucky.
@misty thank you Misty! I agree, this shouldn’t even be a thing that happens.
@eljojo Honest question as someone who's applied to Shopify a few times but never got anywhere. Didn't they also host people who sold swastikas in 2016?
@quanin not when I joined. In 2017 there was breitbart, but no swastika was for sale there. From what I understand, over the past few years content moderation has gotten more lax. With Kanye it became unambiguous the company is 100% OK with Swastikas for sale. I was not aware of that until three weeks ago.
@eljojo Honest question and I'm not here to criticize anything. I mean, I'm currently unemployed - if Shopify offered me a job I still gotta pay bills. But like... what were you expecting after 2017? And if not then, surely removing their policy against hateful content in 2024 would have been a clue. My point is you kinda knew what you were getting prior to 3 weeks ago. Hell, I knew what I was getting prior to 3 weeks ago and I still applied - because like I said, I'm unemployed and I still gotta pay bills.
@quanin since 2017 the company’s policy has been to only host the content that is legal. In Canada, Swastikas are illegal. I was working under the assumption we wouldn’t host Swastikas.
I’ve been there almost a decade. The company is always in the news. Since 2020 I setup mute words about them on all social media. I’ve been vocal about not wanting to know about Shopify outside of work, and at work I mostly focused on my job.
There’s plenty of jobs and companies that don’t support nazis.
@quanin I only learned about last year’s removal of the policy a few weeks ago. The company is huge, you think I’d keep up with everything? they were fucking sneaky about it, keeping employees in the dark too.
@eljojo Yeah, I worked for one of those huge employers. You do kinda need to be paying attention, but the signs are always there. Yes, Shopify's been in the news for years - and not for good reasons. All I'm saying is when your employer starts to look like they're going to shit, probably believe them. For Shopify, that was 2017. You can, of course, leave any employer you please for any reason you please... but this shouldn't be surprising.
@quanin I don’t care about your opinion on this situation. I am sharing my experience here. I wasn’t aware of what was goon on, and once I became aware, I took action.
I will forever judge you for applying to them knowing what you were getting yourself into. I didn’t.
@quanin moreover, I’m glad you weren’t picked. and not surprised.
@eljojo LOL. I wasn't picked because they wanted to underpay me. And probably also because I'm disabled, but whatever. Economy's a dumpster fire and I'll sleep just fine doing what I need to. At least I'm informed while I'm doing it.
@quanin I hope you can find someone that pays you what you deserve!
@eljojo Because you know I applied to Shopify, exactly how low is that number?
@eljojo Read your last reply to me, then reread my question to you. Or better, reread your last 3 replies to me, then read my question to you. The context is right there.
@quanin i won’t do that. i don’t understand why you’re telling all of this to me. what’s your goal?
@eljojo I mean, Shopify has always been a right-leaning company. Since day 1 of Trump's first term they've just leaned farther right. I'm mostly trying to understand what makes the far right Shopify of 2024 or 2023 or 2018 different from the far right Shopify of 2025. I mean aside from Trump's second term, but that can't be that huge of a difference. They've been planning a move to the US since before Trump's second term was a thing, so like... this was coming. Is the line drawn at swastikas and only if you have someone else who's willing to see Shopify on your resume and not blacklist you? Why swastikas and not, for example, Shopify's CEO's desire that the US anex Canada? It's a logic thing. I don't get it.
@quanin Shopify has not always been a right leaning company. In fact, the company has been quite progressive for most of its time. Both internally and externally.
I personally draw the line at swastikas, that’s what this whole thread is about. if you want to think about this logically, understand that everyone’s personal experience leads them to have different conclusions, my conclusion once I learned that my engineering was going towards the sale of swastikas was to stop the engineering.
@quanin the whole thing about annexing canada was like a week apart. ai publicly complained about this back then too! https://ruby.social/@eljojo/113986231600384201
@eljojo Shopify's leadership has always been right wing (Tobias in particular), and where the leadership goes, the company follows. I mean, their website still says they're socially Liberal but we both know better.
Honestly, I'm not trying to criticize you for picking right now to quit. You're doing what you think you have to do and I can respect that. I'm just having a difficult time grasping the logic that hate speech is okay but hate merch is a bridge too far. If I had the option, I'd have a serious problem with both. But see, here's my thing. My employment insurance ends in August. At this point, I'd work for fucking Tesla if it meant I keep my apartment. Yes, Musk hates this country. Yes, Musk is a raging Nazi. But my landlord doesn't care where my rent comes from, and so neither do I. I'll have a problem with it when I can afford to.
@quanin having the vantage point of the platform, I understand it’s hard to create good rules that can be applied fairly and equally. Even swastikas could be argued are ok for religious/buddhist reasons. As an Immigrant, I’m not thrilled about breitbart, but I went through their products and it was all fairly tame and reasonable “we want all immigrants to be documented” type of shit. there’s some plausible deniability there.
With swastikas it’s unambiguous.
@quanin as you quesiton and inquire, you keep stressing how working for nazis is ok under times of economical crises yet you never inquired into whether that took a role in my decision making, or what ties i had to the company. for example, as a temporary foreign worker i would have had to leave the country up until late 2022 had I quit shopify.
@eljojo I believe you are partially making my point for me. Had Shopify gone full Nazi in 2021 and not 2025, what options would you have? Sometimes it's not about what's okay and more about what's available. You mentioned not being surprised Shopify didn't pick me, but let me flip that. Assume Shopify had picked me. At the time, they were the only company I was interviewing with. My choices were work for the Nazis, or be homeless. What would you do?
@quanin @eljojo When you balance more your comfort instead of your ideals then you are done and officially belong to them. It takes courage to walk away a job like this, to stop being an asset.
The problem James is that when we look away we become the enablers of all these wackos, without our greed they don't have any power.
Bravo José.
@rodber @eljojo The problem is that without the ability to make ends meet, you don't have any power. Currently, my ability to make ends meet has an expiration date. I can't pay rent with my ideals, so something's gonna have to give a little. When you've had 8 years to build up a savings, then yeah the math becomes a little different.