It is a symbol that many wanted to see disappear. Social network Facebook announced on Thursday that it had removed advertisements from the Donald Trump election campaign. These images, which intended to attack the far left, displayed an inverted red triangle. A sign used by the Nazis to designate political prisoners, especially those on the left, in concentration camps.
"We removed these posts and ads because they violate our rules on organized hatred," a spokesman for the social media giant said Thursday. The alert was first raised by the Washington Post, which reported the problematic content to Facebook. The platform then unpublished the ads that included the red triangle.
"Hate organizations or hateful ideologies"
"We don't allow symbols that represent hateful organizations or hateful ideologies unless it is to condemn them," said Nathaniel Gleicher, director of cybersecurity regulations at Facebook, when questioned during a congressional hearing. American this Thursday, on the Washington Post article.
The red triangle appeared on some campaign messages sponsored by the President, Vice President Mike Pence, and the campaign team page "Team Trump". The text attacked the "dangerous hordes of extreme left groups" and called on Internet users to sign a petition against the "Antifa" or anti-fascists, whom the Head of State accused, without evidence, of causing damage to the demonstrations against police violence.
A fact-checking program
"Our rules prohibit the use of this symbol [...] without the context that condemns or discusses it," said the spokesman for the network. The debate on the moderation of advertisements and political statements on platforms has been agitating the United States for months, less than 140 days before the presidential election.
Facebook allows political ads and refuses to submit the words of candidates and elected officials to its fact-checking program, in the public interest to form its own opinion. But their messages remain subject to the general rules against terrorism, the apology of violence or even false practical information on the polls.