Facebook Censors Trump Campaign Ad
Facebook removed an ad run by President Donald Trump’s re-election campaign on Thursday for violating the social media platform’s hate speech policy.
The ad, which was posted on the Team Trump Facebook group as well as Trump and Vice President Mike Pence’s pages, featured an upside-down red triangle with a black border, Fox News reported.
A similar symbol was used in Nazi concentration camps in the 1930s to identify political prisoners like socialists, communists and anarchists.
Jewish political prisoners, in contrast, wore a yellow triangle overlaid by a red triangle, according to The Washington Post.
The ad itself denounced “Dangerous MOBS of far-left groups” that are “DESTROYING our cities and rioting – it’s absolute madness.”
“We removed these posts and ads for violating our policy against organized hate,” a Facebook spokesperson told Fox News.
“Our policy prohibits using a banned hate group’s symbol to identify political prisoners without the context that condemns or discusses the symbol.”
According to The Washington Post, 88 ads featuring the red triangle ran in total.
Trump’s campaign said that the upside-down red triangle is used by Antifa and Facebook has it as an emoji.
“The inverted red triangle is a symbol used by Antifa, so it was included in an ad about Antifa,” campaign communications director Tim Murtaugh told Fox News.
“We would note that Facebook still has an inverted red triangle emoji in use, which looks exactly the same, so it’s curious that they would target only this ad.”
This is an emoji. ?
It’s also a symbol widely used by Antifa. It was used in an ad about Antifa.
It is not in the ADL’s Hate Symbols Database. pic.twitter.com/WXSWzBLpkw
— Trump War Room – Text TRUMP to 88022 & get the APP (@TrumpWarRoom) June 18, 2020
Murtaugh pointed out that the image is also not in the Anti-Defamation League’s database of hate symbols.
“But it is ironic that it took a Trump ad to force the media to implicitly concede that Antifa is a hate group,” he said.
Certain Nazi symbols have been reclaimed, like the pink triangle used to label gay inmates, but historian Jacob S. Eder told The Washington Post the red triangle is not one of them.
“I think it’s a highly problematic use of a symbol that the Nazis used to identify their political enemies,” he said.
“It’s hard to imagine it’s done on purpose, because I’m not sure the vast majority of Americans know or understand the sign, but it’s very, very careless, to say the least.”
Facebook has previously taken action against Trump campaign ads, including removing ads in March it said caused confusion about the U.S. Census.
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