Why's everyone so horrified by this Bloomberg Businessweek cover?

Bloomberg Businessweek has published a hard-hitting report on the privacy issues surrounding the popular Alexa range of Amazon devices. Everyone's talking about it... but not because of the content of the article. It's because of the artwork that appears on the cover. 

Sadly, in a bid to capture a visual metaphor for Amazon listening in on your private conversations, the art team at Bloomberg have accidentally created (we'll only say it once)... an Echo fleshlight. It's one of the peak design fails we've seen. See it being unveiled in Bloomberg's GIF below.

When Bloomberg first shared the cover on Twitter, literally thousands of people rushed to point out the similarity that absolutely no one in the publication approval line had spotted. Here are some of our favourite comments: 

Wonderfully, the article itself (read it here) is actually titled: 'Silicon Valley is listening to your most intimate moments". You couldn't make it up. Bloomberg's own response was a little weak. 

Which has led some to suggest maybe the art team knew exactly what they were doing. After all, nothing's going to publicise your mag like sticking a sex toy on the cover. 

Read more:

• Netflix brings out the smutty side of brands
• Apple is offering wheels for the new Mac Pro... for an extra $400
• Christmas gift idea: the present everyone wants (even if they don't know it yet)