China’s e-commerce titan Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. has apologized and removed its recruitment ad after it received widespread criticism for the ad's sexist and commercial theme, the Hong Kong-based South China Morning Post reported.
The report said that Alibaba issued the controversial post on April 29 as a recruitment ad for an "adequately stunning" programmer and encouragement specialist who "might be an open-minded Lolita" like Sora Aoi, a Japanese adult movie star, or Song Hye-kyo, a Korean actress from an affluent family whose beauty and feminine features "exceeds nature itself."
The report added that the post also enumerated the other requirements of the job, which included tasks such as notifying programmers to wake up for early morning meetings, congratulating and motivating them, and making engineers and programmers feel at ease.
Netizens who saw the controversial ad reacted furiously and expressed their sentiments online. Many of them saw the ad as inappropriate and sexist, the report added.
According to the South China Morning Post, Alibaba reacted immediately and had the recruitment ad removed. The company later told Bloomberg that the ad was intended to be funny or humorous.
Alibaba said that the ad was "intended to be an attempt at humorous marketing to recruit IT talent," according to a statement given to Quartz.
"We apologize to anyone offended by this ad," Alibaba told Bloomberg. "Alibaba is committed to providing equal opportunity and fair treatment to all employees on the basis of merit, without discrimination."
The report said that the Internet giant later announced that they would create a revised version of the ad that encourages both male and female applicants, without making references to Sora Aoi and Song Hye-kyo.