Facebook takes down Trump ads with Nazi-like symbol
The Anti-Defamation League said Thursday the triangle “is practically identical to that used by the Nazi regime to classify political prisoners in concentration camps.”
The hate group to which Facebook was referring in its statement is Nazis, the company confirmed.
The ADL said Thursday that some antifa activists have used the symbol, but it is not particularly common.
One of the ads in question.
The paid ad was seen almost one million times in Facebook users’ feeds on Trump’s page alone, according to data from Facebook.
In a statement, Tim Murtaugh, director of communications for the Trump campaign, insisted the red triangle is a “symbol used by Antifa.”
Murtaugh added, “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,” he said.
Responding to that defense, the ADL pointed out that its database is not a database of historical Nazi symbols, but of symbols commonly used by modern extremists in the US.
Facebook’s removal of Trump’s ads could escalate tensions between the White House and Silicon Valley.
