Facebook on Thursday deactivated dozens of ads placed by President Donald Trump’s reelection campaign that included a symbol once used by the Nazis to designate political prisoners in concentration camps.
Facebook on Thursday deactivated dozens of ads placed by President Donald Trump’s reelection campaign that included a symbol once used by the Nazis to designate political prisoners in concentration camps.
The marking appeared as part of the campaign’s online salvo against antifa and « far-left groups. »
A red inverted triangle was first used in the 1930s to identify Communists, and was applied as well to Social Democrats, liberals, Freemasons and other members of opposition parties. The badge forced on Jewish political prisoners, by contrast, featured a yellow triangle overlaid by a red triangle.
The symbol appeared in paid posts sponsored by Trump and Vice President Mike Pence, as well as by the « Team Trump » campaign page. It was featured alongside text warning of « Dangerous MOBS » and asking users to sign a petition about antifa, a loose collection of anti-fascist activists whom the Trump administration has sought to link to recent violence, despite arrest records that show their involvement is trivial.
Facebook removed the material following queries from The Washington Post, saying ads and organic posts with the inverted triangle violated its 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, » said Andy Stone, a Facebook spokesman.
But the ads on the president’s page alone — which began running on Wednesday — gained as many as 950,000 impressions by Thursday morning. Identical ads on Pence’s page gained as many as 500,000 impressions.
Eighty-eight ads with the inverted red triangle ran in total — across pages for Trump, Pence and the official « Team Trump » page on the social network. They targeted all 50 states.
Nathaniel Gleicher, Facebook’s head of security policy, faced questions about the ads from Rep. Eric Swalwell, D-Calif., during a Thursday hearing before the House Intelligence Committee.
« We obviously want to be careful to allow someone to put up a symbol to condemn it or to discuss it, » Gleicher told the lawmakers. « But in a situation where we don’t see either of those, we don’t allow it on the platform and we’ll remove it. That’s what we saw in this case with this ad, and anywhere that symbol is used, we would take the same action. »
Tim Murtaugh, a spokesman for the Trump campaign, said, « The red triangle is an antifa symbol, » pointing to examples of iPhone cases and water bottles branded with the insignia. A more common emblem for the anti-fascist movement includes two flags, one red and one black, enclosed in a circle.
« 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, » Murtaugh added.
Although certain symbols the Nazis deployed have been reclaimed, including the pink triangle used in concentration camps to label gay inmates, the red triangle has not been recast in a similar way, said Jacob Eder, a historian of modern Germany at the Barenboim — Said Akademie in Berlin.
« I think it’s a highly problematic use of a symbol that the Nazis used to identify their political enemies, » he said.
