Facebook has purged its platform of pages touting the far-right Britain First group and its leaders, including Jayda Fransen, the anti-Islamic activist infamously retweeted by President Trump last year, citing repeating violations of its rules against hate speech.
In a blog post Wednesday, Facebook said it has removed the pages of Britain First, its leader Paul Golding and his deputy, Fransen, for posting content in violation of the social network’s community standards.
“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,” the blog post said.
“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,” the post continued. “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.”
Britain First’s banned Facebook page boasted about 2 million social media followers before being abruptly removed Wednesday, having made the platform an important conduit with respect to propagating the group’s ultranationalist ideologies.
“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,” Facebook said of the removals.
Sadiq Khan, the mayor of London, applauded Facebook’s decision in a statement Wednesday.
“Britain First is a vile and hate-fueled group whose sole purpose is to sow division. Their sick intentions to incite hatred within our society via social media are reprehensible, and Facebook’s decision to remove their content is welcome,” said Mr. Khan.
Founded in 2011 by former members of the British National Party, Britain First has repeatedly come under fire on both sides of the Atlantic for propagating anti-immigration and anti-Islamic sentiments, including notably in November after Mr. Trump retweeted several videos in posted on Twitter by Fransen, spurring condemnation from British politicians and prompting calls for the president to be banned from the U.K.
Twitter suspended the accounts of Britain First and its leaders in December, and Mr. Trump has since stated that he was unaware of their activities before repeatedly retweeting Mr. Fransen.
“If you are telling me they’re horrible people, horrible, racist people, I would certainly apologize if you’d like me to do that,” Mr. Trump told broadcaster Piers Morgan in January.
More recently both Golding, 36, and Fransen, 32, were convicted last week of religiously aggravated harassment and handed 18-week and 36-week sentences, respectively, rendering either unavailable for comment.
“The assault on our movement is relentless, we must all stand united in the face of this persecution,” a person with access to Golding’s account on Gab, an alternative social media service, said Wednesday.
• Andrew Blake can be reached at ablake@washingtontimes.com.
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