Facebook removes President Trump’s re-election messages

Facebook on Thursday removed ads by President Donald Trump’s re-election campaign that contained a symbol used in Nazi Germany for political prisoners.

The leading social network, which has drawn fire over its hands-off approach to political speech in recent months, said in a statement the campaign messages violated a policy against “organised hate” and were taken down as a result.

“We don’t allow symbols that represent hateful organisations or hateful ideologies unless they are put up with context or condemnation,” Facebook head of security policy Nathaniel Gleicher said at a House of Representatives committee hearing.

“That’s what we saw in this case with this ad, and anywhere that that symbol is used we would take the same actions.”

Facebook’s move against the ads targeted when the contended are dangerous far-left groups comes amid heated debate between social platforms and political leaders on what content may be allowed or banned.

In a tweet from a “Trump War Room,” the campaign contended the upside-down red triangle symbol at issue was “widely used” in reference to left-wing activist group Antifa.

Watchdog group Media Matters replied with a tweet saying that is certainly not the case.