Facebook Removes Trump Campaign’s Anti-Antifa Advertisement Over ‘Nazi’ Imagery

Facebook’s back-and-forth stance on just how to wield their power over electoral politicking has been the talk of social media as of late, as CEO Mark Zuckerberg maintains his hopes to remain as uninvolved as possible in the 2020 general election.

Today, however, the popular social media platform appeared to take a more proactive stance, removing an advertisement from the Trump reelection campaign on the grounds that it continued hate-based symbolism.

The ad, now removed by Facebook, denounced Antifa, the decentralized movement of far-left agitators known for acts of domestic terrorism and political violence.

The now-deleted Trump ad featured an inverted red-and-black triangle to symbolize the Antifa movement, which uses the red-and-black color scheme in their badges, flags, and propaganda as a form of ideological identification. Red-and-black are the historical colors of the anarcho-communist movement, and red triangles are an Antifa symbol according to products available for purchase.

But therein lies the problem:  The inverted triangle, (red and/or otherwise), was also used by Nazi officials to label concentration camp occupants based on their alleged offenses.

One report out of media matters also stated that the campaign ran “88” of these advertisements, with that number included to draw allusions to the neo-Nazi symbolism related to it.

Facebook let the Trump campaign run 88 ads with inverted red triangle — an infamous Nazi symbol https://t.co/7eG1V9gNS8 pic.twitter.com/4yqTJgymr5

— Media Matters (@mmfa) June 18, 2020

The Trump campaign vehemently denies any correlation, however.

In a post on Twitter, the Trump team posted an image showing the inverted red-and-black triangle being used by Antifa, in response to a Media Matters post accusing the campaign of using Nazi imagery.

“This is an emoji. It’s also a symbol widely used by Antifa. It was used in an ad about Antifa,” said the Trump team. “It is not in the ADL’s Hate Symbols Database.”

In a comment to the New York Daily News, the Trump team again pointed out the symbol’s links to Antifa.

“The red triangle is an Antifa symbol,” said Trump campaign spokesman Ken Farnaso who linked to the symbol being used in Antifa-branded products.

One can only imagine that, now that the dam has been broken, Facebook will be continuing to monitor the Trump team’s communications with a keen eye as we approach the November election.