On Thursday, a spokesperson for Facebook said in a statement: “We removed these posts and ads for violating our policy against 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.”
The ads in question targeted the far-left group Antifa and called on Trump supporters to back the president’s calls to designate the group a terrorist organization, according to CNN.
One variation of the ad was targeted at male voters in Texas and could have reached over one million voters, according to Facebook’s Ad Library.
In a tweet on Thursday, the Anti-Defamation League’s CEO, Jonathan Greenblatt, said: “The Nazis used red triangles to identify their political victims in concentration camps. Using it to attack political opponents is highly offensive.”
The Nazis used red triangles to identify their political victims in concentration camps. Using it to attack political opponents is highly offensive. @POTUS' campaign needs to learn its history, as ignorance is no excuse for using Nazi-related symbols. June 18, 2020
The Facebook ads appeared on pages belonging to Trump and Vice President Mike Pence, and also appeared in ads and organic posts on the “Team Trump” page.
Reuters is reporting that Tim Murtaugh, a spokesman for the Trump campaign, said in an email: “The inverted red triangle is a symbol used by Antifa, so it was included in an ad about Antifa. 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. The image is also not included in the Anti-Defamation League’s database of symbols of hate.”
Facebook has come under fire from its own employees and business partners for not removing or moderating one of Trump’s posts where he wrote, “when the looting starts, the shooting starts,” referencing the nationwide protests over the death of George Floyd while in police custody.
