On Thursday, Facebook announced that they have removed Trump’s campaign ads because of the upside-down red triangle that was featured in the post, which resembles the triangle used during the Holocaust for Nazi’s to identify their political opponent.
What We Know:
- Facebook has removed Trump’s campaign posts and advertisements because it contained an upside-down red triangle that was used during the Holocaust to identify their political opponent. Facebook said that the ads violated the website’s policy against hate.
- “Our policy prohibits using a banned hate group’s symbol to identify political prisoners without the context that condemns or discusses the symbol,” Facebook’s spokesperson said.
- During the holocaust, prisoners had different colored triangles sewn to their uniform to inform the SS guard of their reason for being detained. A red triangle was for a political opponent, a pink one was for a homosexual, a purple one was for a Jehovah witness, a black triangle for a wide range of behaviors or deeds, and a green triangle for a criminal.
- The Trump campaign responded by defending themselves claiming the red triangle is an emoji and that the symbol is not included in the Anti-Defamation league Hate Symbols Database.
- “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,” Tim Murtaugh, director of communications for the Trump campaign, stated.
- This also caused the CEO of the Anti-Defamation League, Johnathan Greenblatt, to step in and shut down Trump’s campaign on Twitter telling the President’s campaign to learn the history of the symbol.
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. https://t.co/7R7aGLD7kl
— Jonathan Greenblatt (@JGreenblattADL) June 18, 2020
And although he sprung into action with Trump’s campaign ads, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg was criticized last month for not doing anything when a Trump post read “when the looting starts, the shooting starts”.
