You won’t find James Harr or the business he founded on YouTube, Instagram, TikTok, or other social media platforms. Why? In the aftermath of the killing of United Healthcare CEO Brian Thompson, Harr revealed a plan to sell a pack of playing cards with the faces of CEOs on them. As detailed by the Electronic Frontier Foundation, online platforms systematically removed Harr and ComradeWorkWear from their services following the card reveal.
There’s a proud tradition in America of putting your political or military enemies on playing cards and selling them to people. During the 2003 invasion of Iraq, the Defense Intelligence Agency produced a set of playing cards that contained the photos, names, and identifying information about America’s targets in Iraq. You can buy a deck on Amazon right now made by playing card giant Bicycle.
Also on Amazon is a deck of cards outfitted with Russian politicians and media figures outfitted in prison garb. It’s called the “Hague Tribunal” deck and it costs about $12. Elsewhere on the internet, you can buy a deck of “COVID’s Most Wanted,” which includes such illustrious figures as Anthony Fauci and CEOs Jeff Bezos, Jack Dorsey, and Mark Zuckerberg. Some of the listings even include the “Most Wanted’s” phone numbers, email addresses, and social media links.
A generic list of CEOs on playing cards, though? That was a bridge too far for some of these platforms.
Harr announced the deck on December 14, 2024. An archived version of ComradeWorkWear shows off the cards. The 52-card deck had a picture of the CEOs, the name of their companies, and a QR code that would take the curious to a page that explained why the CEOs were evil. The back of the playing cards showed a targeting silhouette, the kind sold in gun stores all over the U.S.
Harr promoted the deck on his various social media platforms. The New York Post saw this and published a front-page story about the cards under the headline “Whacked Deck. Twisted card game to hunt down CEOs” on December 15.
On December 17, NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch held up a copy of The Post during a press conference and condemned the deck of cards. “Yesterday, the New York Post reported that some extreme activists were circulating a deck of cards with other most wanted CEOs to be targeted for assassination,” she said. “These are the threats of a lawless, violent mob who would trade in their own vigilantism for the rule of law that protects us all.”
After the press conference, Harr started losing access to his personal and business accounts on social media sites. His TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube accounts are gone. YouTube tells users it’s because that account has “violated community guidelines.”
Harr didn’t receive much communication from the platforms he did business with. On December 20, Paypal, Shopify, and Apple Pay cut him off. According to EFF, Shopify told him it was because of “offensive content” and that the decision “was made by our banking partners.”
Across the social web, people openly discuss the death of people they hate. Luigi Mangione is glorified, Ted Kaczynski is lauded, and people on both sides of the war between Russia and Ukraine share horrifying memes glorifying violence. You can buy a pack of playing cards of “Gaza’s Most Wanted” on Instagram. Shopify stopped doing business with Harr but is still selling “COVID’s Most Wanted” decks, which include many of the same CEOs and their personal information.
Moderation is not equally distributed.