Govee removed a marketing image from its U.S. website after it displayed books with only the phrase “white supremacy” visible on their spines. The image had appeared on a page promoting bedroom lighting products and showed the books placed on a shelf above a child’s bed, partially obscured by toy animals.

The image remained on Govee’s site until the company took it down after being contacted by The Verge, which had received a tip from a reader. According to an archived version of the Govee website preserved by the Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine, the image had been live since at least April 11. Govee did not respond to The Verge’s inquiries before the publication released its initial report.

Connie Liu, Govee’s PR manager, said the image “was sourced from a third-party licensed library.” She added that the company did not provide details about its internal content review practices when asked whether human reviewers assess marketing materials before publication or what safeguards exist to prevent offensive content. “We sincerely apologize for the offensive content contained in this image. As soon as we became aware of the matter, the image was immediately removed from the Govee website. We are committed to ensuring all content on our platforms aligns with our core values of respect and integrity, and we take this matter extremely seriously.”

She acknowledged shortcomings in the company’s internal oversight. “However, we recognize that our internal review and approval process did not meet the standard required. We are taking immediate steps to strengthen our processes to ensure this does not happen again.”

It remains unclear whether the books depicted in the image correspond to any actual publication. Because only the phrase “white supremacy” was legible, no definitive identification is possible. The image also lacked digital watermarking standards such as C2PA or SynthID that are sometimes used to identify AI-generated content.