Amazon has removed Nazi articles from its website after a Jewish human rights group denounced the incident.

The Simon Wiesenthal Center criticized Amazon for “monetizing” Nazi and racist paraphernalia by allowing third-party sellers to sell swastika pendants and neo-Nazi face masks. In a blog post, the organization called on Amazon to immediately remove “hateful” products and stop recommending them.

The latest wave of removals is part of a dispute between the SWC and Amazon that has been going on for nearly five years. A year ago, the e-commerce giant removed 20 Nazi propaganda films, many of which were shot by German filmmaker Leni Riefenstahl, at the behest of the SWC.

At the time, the human rights organization said the films could only be shown in history classes, where teachers could “expose the lies of Nazi Germany, its violent racist ideology and its genocidal hatred towards the Jewish people.”

In 2017, the SWC wrote to Amazon founder (and then CEO) Jeff Bezos to protest against Amazon Germany’s sale of a book that spread a Jewish conspiracy theory. In 2020, the human rights group called on then-British Education Secretary Gavin Williamson to take action against Amazon’s sale of Nazi texts that called for the killing of Jews.

While Amazon removed several of these items as part of its recent cleanup, similar products were still available on the site last Friday, according to Gizmodo.

Amazon has not commented on the removals. Its shopping site features both its own products, from private label clothing to electronics, and items sold by third-party sellers. The company generated $28.7 billion (£23.5 billion) from third-party sellers in the third quarter of 2021, up 18 percent from the previous year.

“Amazon is the nation’s online store for every product imaginable,” said Rabbi Abraham Cooper, SWC’s associate dean and director of global social action.

“At a time when 63 percent of all religiously motivated hate crimes in America target American Jews – 2.4 percent of the U.S. population – and when blacks are once again the primary target of racially motivated hate crimes, Amazon should not use its business model to market hateful symbols and neo-Nazi paraphernalia.”

Amazon’s Offensive and Controversial Products policy prohibits items that promote, incite or glorify hatred, violence, racial, sexual or religious intolerance, or promote organizations with such views. The rules apply to all products except books, music, videos and DVDs. In addition, listings that graphically depict violence or victims of violence will be removed.

Amazon describes its moderation systems as proactive enough to “identify objectionable listings before a customer even sees them,” although this is obviously not always the case.

“Our technology continuously scans all products offered for sale for text and images that we believe violate our policies and promptly removes them,” the company’s policy states. “In addition to reviewing information from sources such as customer service contacts, social media posts and the press, our teams ‘walk the store’ every day, proactively looking for potentially offensive products.”

Swastikas and similar Nazi hate images are obviously not addressed, although the products have been described as Kolvrat knots or Hindu symbols instead of swastikas, or as skull badges, “crossed pirate skull bones” and similar descriptions.