Facebook takes down Trump ads for violating its policy against 'organised hate'

Facebookhas removed a number of posts and ads run by Donald Trump’s re-election campaign that featured a symbol used by the Nazis for violating its “policy against organised hate”.

The takedown on Thursday came amid increasingpressure on Facebookfrom civil rights leaders, Democratic politicians, and the company’s own employees to take a stronger stance against the president’s ugly and at times violent and hateful rhetoric on the platform, though it is not the first time that Facebook has removed Trump campaign ads for violating policies.

"We removed these posts and ads for violatingour policyagainst organized hate. Our policy prohibits using a banned hate group's symbol to identify political prisoners without the context that condemns or discusses the symbol," Andy Stone, a Facebook spokesperson said.

The company said the offending ad contained an inverted red triangle similar to that used by the Nazis to label opponents such as communists.

Trump's campaign team said they were aimed at the far-left activist group antifa, which it said uses the symbol.

The now-removed ads featured an image of an inverted red triangle with a black border and the message: “Dangerous MOBS of far-left groups are running through our streets and causing absolute mayhem. They are DESTROYING our cities and rioting – it’s absolute madness … Please add your name IMMEDIATELY to stand with your President and his decision to declare ANTIFA a Terrorist Organization.”

The Trump campaign ran a number of ads on Facebook lambasting antifa.Those using the inverted red triangle, a symbol used by Nazis in the concentration camps, have been removed. Photograph: Facebook

The ads, which were posted on the site on pages belonging to President Trump and Vice-President Mike Pence, were online for about 24 hours and had received hundreds of thousands of views before they were taken down.

The inverted red triangle was used by the Nazis to identify political prisoners in concentration camps during the Holocaust.

Bend the Arc, a progressive Jewish activist organization, drew attention to the ads on Twitter on on Wednesday, writing: “The President of the United States is campaigning for re-election using a Nazi concentration camp symbol … Trump & the RNC are using it to smear millions of protestors. Their masks are off.”

"The inverted red triangle is a symbol used by antifa, so it was included in an ad about antifa," Tim Murtaugh, a spokesman for the Trump campaign, said in a statement.

"We would note that Facebook still has an inverted red triangle emoji in use, which looks exactly the same," he added.

Trump has recently accused antifa of starting riots at street protests across the US over the death in police custody of African American George Floyd.