A teacher contacted Adafruit about racist content on Thingiverse and asked for our help to encourage MakerBot, Thingiverse and Stratasys to continue to enforce its existing rules and remove the hatred, white supremacy, bigotry, racism, antisemitism, and violence from the Thingiverse platform.
On June 24th, 2020 we emailed Nadav Goshen the CEO at MakerBot, MakerBot PR, and Stratasys the parent company. Included were specific examples which were on the site, we also included meaningful actions to take to not only remove the hateful content, but also ways for Thingiverse to take ongoing actions against racist content.
And good news, MakerBot (Thingiverse) replied and removed the content, same day, within hours.
We informed the teacher that contacted us, and we’d like to thank MakerBot for taking quick action.
The work is not done, if you see racist content on Thingiverse click “Report Thing” and report it. If there are other 3d printing repositories with racist content, let them know.
MakerBot’s response to our email (images removed) is below.
From: MakerBot PR [email protected]
Subject: Re: Removing Racism from Thingiverse
Date: June 24, 2020 at 7:29:36 PM EDT
Dear Limor Fried, Phillip Torrone, and Adafruit Industries,
Thank you for bringing these concerns, examples, and suggested meaningful actions to our attention.
At MakerBot, we stand firmly in support of movements that support equality and are against injustice, violence, and systemic racism. We are committed to fostering a diverse and inclusive community, within the company, and the 3D printing community, including the Thingiverse community.
As you correctly note in your letter, our Term of Use (available at https://www.makerbot.com/legal/terms) includes an Acceptable Use Policy that prohibits, among other things, “racism, bigotry, hatred, or physical harm of any kind against any group or individual.”
We encourage the Thingiverse community to actively report violations of our Terms of Use, including the Acceptable Use Policy, through a “Report Thing” link that we include on each Thing (i.e., design) web page. We review all reports that we receive from this “Report Thing” link or are otherwise brought to our attention, and take enforcement action(s) as detailed in our Terms of Use.
Concerning the specific content you note in your letter, as of June 24, 2020, the content is no longer available to the public and the users who posted such content have been notified of their violation of our Terms of Use.
Best, MakerBot Industries
Adafruit publishes a wide range of writing and video content, including interviews and reporting on the maker market and the wider technology world. Our standards page is intended as a guide to best practices that Adafruit uses, as well as an outline of the ethical standards Adafruit aspires to. While Adafruit is not an independent journalistic institution, Adafruit strives to be a fair, informative, and positive voice within the community – check it out here: adafruit.com/editorialstandards
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