Facebook removed 88 ads Thursday posted by the accounts of President Donald Trump, the Trump campaign and Vice President Mike Pence that the social media giant said were “violating our policy against organized hate.”
All of the identical ads featured an upside-down red triangle, a symbol used by the Nazi party in World War II to identify political dissidents in concentration camps. The ads caught the attention of some Twitter users Thursday who pointed out the symbol’s historical significance.
A Facebook spokesperson wrote in an emailed statement that the posts violated the company’s policies.
“Our policy prohibits using a banned hate group’s symbol to identify political prisoners without the context that condemns or discusses the symbol,” the spokesperson wrote.
Other ads with identical language featured different images including exclamation points and stop signs. Those ads are still visible in the Facebook ad library.
The ads were posted from three accounts: the president’s official account, the vice president’s official account and the official Trump campaign account, according to the Facebook ad library.
A Twitter account for the Trump campaign said the image was not in the Anti-Defamation League’s Hate Symbols Database and claimed an upside-down red triangle was “widely used by antifa.”
The account directed an NBC News reporter to a T-shirt on which the word “ANTIFA” is written across an upside-down red triangle as proof. The shirt was created by a user from Spain on a website in which anyone can upload their own T-shirt design.
The triangle is otherwise not common among antifa iconography, which usually features a red and black flag or three arrows.
The removed ads warned “dangerous MOBS of far-left groups are running through our streets and causing absolute mayhem.”
The ad aims to broaden Trump’s mailing list by soliciting contact information on his official site.
“Please add your name IMMEDIATELY to stand with your President and his decision to declare ANTIFA a Terrorist Organization,” it read.
Jo Ling Kent contributed.
