Facebook bans far-right UK political group

The far-right political group Britain first has been banned by Facebook. The group frequently incited hate speech and organised rallies against ethnic minorities, racial diversity, immigration and the LGBT+ community. The page had over a million followers, making it the largest political page in the UK.

The group’s leaders, Paul Golding and Jayda Fransen, were both arrested earlier this month for religiously aggravated harassment.

Facebook released a statement addressing the permanent deletion of the group and reiterated their policies around hate speech: “We are an open platform for all ideas and political speech goes to the heart of free expression. But political views can and should be expressed without hate. People can express robust and controversial opinions without needing to denigrate others on the basis of who they are.

“There are times though when legitimate political speech crosses the line and becomes hate speech designed to stir up hatred against groups in our society. This is an important issue which we take very seriously… We have Community Standards that clearly state this sort of speech is not acceptable on Facebook and, when we become aware of it, we remove it as quickly as we can.

“Content posted on the Britain First Facebook Page and the Pages of party leaders Paul Golding and Jayda Fransen has repeatedly broken our Community Standards.

“We recently gave the administrators of the Pages a written final warning, and they have continued to post content that violates our Community Standards. As a result, in accordance with our policies, we have now removed the official Britain First Facebook Page and the Pages of the two leaders with immediate effect.

“We do not do this lightly, but they have repeatedly posted content designed to incite animosity and hatred against minority groups, which disqualifies the Pages from our service.”

Tim Gibson - mygwork

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