Facebook takes down Trump ads 'for violating our policy against organized hate'

Some Facebook employees plan to stage a virtual walkout on Monday to protest CEO Mark Zuckerberg's decision not to take action on a series of controversial posts last week from President Donald Trump, a person familiar with the plans told CNN Business. (Marlene Awaad/Bloomberg/Getty Images)

Facebook on Thursday said it had taken action against ads run by U.S. President Donald Trump's re-election campaign for breaching its policies on hate. The ads, which attacked what the Trump campaign described as "Dangerous MOBS of far-left groups," featured an upside-down triangle.

The Anti-Defamation League said Thursday the triangle "is practically identical to that used by the Nazi regime to classify political prisoners in concentration camps."

"We removed these posts and ads for violating our policy against organized hate. Our policy prohibits using a banned hate group's symbol to identify political prisoners without the context that condemns or discusses the symbol," Andy Stone, a Facebook spokesperson, told CNN Business.

The ads targeted the far left group Antifa, calling on Trump supporters to back the President's calls to designate the group a terrorist organization.

Responding to criticism of the ad earlier Thursday, the Trump campaign claimed the red triangle was "a symbol widely used by Antifa."

According to Facebook's political ad library, a set of ads featuring the offending symbol began running on Wednesday on Trump's main Facebook page, the "Team Trump" campaign page, and Vice-President Mike Pence's Facebook page.

The paid ad was seen almost one million times in Facebook users' feeds on Trump's page alone, according to data from Facebook.

In a statement, Tim Murtaugh, director of communications for the Trump campaign, insisted the red triangle is a "symbol used by Antifa.

The campaign pointed to several links of t-shirt, sticker, and magnet websites that sell merchandise with the symbol.

Murtaugh added, "We would note that Facebook still has an inverted red triangle emoji in use, which looks exactly the same, so it's curious that they would target only this ad."