Amazon Retires Amazon Smile, Won’t Say If Replacement Programs Will Continue to Systematically Exclude Conservatives

Amazon will retire its charity platform, Amazon Smile, and the Big Tech company aims to replace some of that effort with other charitable programs, but it declined to comment on whether it will continue to systematically exclude conservative and Christian groups from its charitable efforts.

The company announced Wednesday that it will “wind down” Amazon Smile by Feb. 20, 2023, after a round of layoffs. The company determined that the platform, launched in 2013, “has not grown to create the impact we had originally hoped. With so many eligible organizations—more than 1 million globally—our ability to have an impact was often spread too thin.”

Amazon had previously faced criticism for relying on the left-wing Southern Poverty Law Center’s discredited “hate group” accusations to exclude certain conservative and Christian nonprofits from receiving funds on Amazon Smile. When Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., asked then-Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos why Amazon relies on the SPLC, Bezos acknowledged “this is an imperfect system,” but neither Bezos nor current CEO Andy Jassy addressed the issue again.