The unusual situation arose after Helloprint declined to continue printing stickers and merchandise such as t-shirts for long-standing customer Kellie-Jay Keen, aka Posie Parker, a campaigner who runs Standing for Women and the AdultHumanFemale channel on YouTube.
Keen told MailOnline that Helloprint had previously printed most of her products without any issues.
“I have taken great care over the years never to disclose who prints my stuff in case they are targeted by the trans lobby,” she said.
“That famous t-shirt JK Rowling wore, I designed and had printed – Helloprint actually made it.”
MailOnline described Helloprint as a “woke firm”, while conversely PinkNews congratulated the print platform for refusing to make what it described as Keen’s “vile” merchandise.
Helloprint CEO Hans Scheffer told Printweek that the firm's situation would also resonate with other web-to-print businesses.
“The question is always whether [we] should be involved with decisions like this or not. The easiest way is to just shut your eyes and print it,” he said.
“Helloprint employs almost 350 people and 38 nationalities, and more than 10% are openly LGBT+, and they have a voice and an opinion. It's extremely important that we listen to the people who are confronted with certain pieces of artwork and content that they identify as harmful.”
Scheffer noted that while some of Keen’s items were inoffensive, when taking into account all of the products some of her garments “could be described as anti-transgender”.
“We are open to anyone as long as they are not evangelising hate or exclusion,” Scheffer said.
He also noted: “We are not the only ones tackling this.”
Helloprint has set up an employee committee to look at the issue, and is defining new and updated conditions on how decisions will be made about whether to print something, or not.
“From Gutenberg’s time this was a thing, it’s nothing new. But society is more sensitive today,” he added.
“We’re working with our technology teams on the implementation of an AI tool that identifies possibly harmful content, that then goes to a manual check. We are trying to get all kinds of checks and balances in place... but we can’t check everything. We are not the content police.
“If we feel that something is harmful or doesn’t resonate with our culture and the company we want to be, then we just don’t print it. And that’s the reality.”
Scheffer said the issue had been openly discussed at a recent monthly keynote meeting with employees, with one LGBT+ employee stepping up to provide some powerful feedback:
“They said ‘I feel safe at this company because if something happens they will stand up for me’.”
Helloprint has also found itself on the receiving end of a slew of one-star reviews on Trustpilot because of the row.
“It’s a sad day if you use a platform made to inform others about your experiences to start a campaign of hate. It says a lot about those people,” Scheffer responded.
Regarding trading in general, Scheffer said that 2022 had been a good year for the overall business across Europe, despite the UK being “a bit more difficult” because of the economic issues here.
He also said that 90% of the work ordered by UK customers was now printed in the UK.
