Protesters At Amazon Shareholder Meeting Want Company To End Breitbart Ads

SEATTLE, WA — A number of progressive activist protested outside the Amazon shareholder meeting Tuesday morning, demanding Amazon stop advertising on the inflammatory, white nationalist-associated website Breitbart.com. The protest will was held between 8:30 a.m. and 10 a.m. outside Fremont Studios along 35th Avenue in the Fremont neighborhood.

The protest included a rally outside the venue with and a flyover by a plane with a banner that read, "Amazon Stop Funding Hate. Drop Breitbart." The groups, which include Democratic organizing group MoveOn.org and the anti-sexism group UltraViolet, also delivered petitions with 1.2 million signatures asking Amazon to drop the ads.

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After the protest, UltraViolet posted a video of the group delivering the petitions. The protesters tried to bring the petitions inside the meeting, but were stopped by Seattle police.

Patch.com has reached out to Amazon for a response to this protest, and we will update this post if we hear back.

Breitbart.com is the "platform of the alt-right," according to its former chief executive, Steve Bannon, who is now one of President Donald Trump's top political aides. The alt-right has been associated with white nationalism and other extremist groups.

There was a second protest outside the shareholder meeting staged by pilots who fly Amazon Prime Air planes. Amazon contracts with the logistics companies Atlas Air and Air Transport Services Group for Primar Air, and the pilots earn 50 percent less than industry standard, according to the Teamsters Union.

Late in 2016, a group called Sleeping Giants began an internet-based movement to convince companies to stop advertising on Breitbart. The group asked people to use Twitter to notify companies that their products were being placed next to distasteful content. Amazon is one of the remaining companies targeted by Sleeping Giants.

Sleeping Giants so far claims to have so far stopped approximately 2,000 companies from advertising on Breitbart.

Image via Neal McNamara