Socail media gaint Facebook Bans U.K. Far-Right Group Once Retweeted by Donald Trump Facebook has permanently banned Britain First, the racist and anti-Muslim political group, from its platform after multiple warnings about hate speech. Paul Golding and Jayda Fransen, two leaders of the group who were jailed earlier this month for religious harassment, also had their pages removed on Wednesday as Facebook has come under increasing pressure in the United Kingdom to clamp down on its toxic platform.
The organization’s official Facebook page has been removed, along with those of Britain First leaders Paul Golding and Jayda Fransen. Facebook said they had “repeatedly posted content designed to incite animosity and hatred against minority groups.”
“There are times … when legitimate political speech crosses the line and becomes hate speech designed to stir up hatred against groups in our society,” Facebook said in a statement.
Britain First gained international attention last year when President Donald Trump retweeted three inflammatory videos posted by Fransen on Twitter, setting off a political firestorm that strained relations between London and Washington.Last week, Facebook removed and then reinstated a video of a senior Hungarian minister in which he tried to portray white people in neighboring Austria as living in fear of Muslims in a warning to voters before his country’s elections next month. Facebook’s banning of Britain First follows in the footsteps of Twitter Inc., which late last year pulled accounts linked to Britain First, alongside U.S. white supremacist organizations like the League of the South and American Renaissance.Political leaders and big advertisers are increasing the pressure on social media companies do more to remove objectionable and illegal material from their platform]]>