Facebook said Wednesday that it had taken down several pages associated with “Britain First,” a far-right group whose leaders were recently convicted of hate crimes and whose inflammatory anti-Muslim videos President Trump shared with the world late last year.

The social network said that the pages of Britain First and its leaders, Paul Golding and Jayda Fransen, had repeatedly violated community standards with posts that boasted of Islamophobia, incited hateful anti-Muslim comments and compared Muslim immigrants to animals.

After the administrators of the pages failed to heed a final warning to abide by Facebook’s standards, the company took the fringe group’s pages down.

“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.</s>Image copyright Facebook Image caption The Britain First Facebook page had attracted more than two million likes

Facebook has removed the pages of the anti-Islamic group Britain First and its leaders.

The social media company said the group had repeatedly violated its community standards.

Earlier this month, Britain First's leader and deputy leader, Paul Golding and Jayda Fransen, were jailed after being found guilty of religiously aggravated harassment.

More than two million people had liked the group's Facebook page.

The pages of Paul Golding and Jayda Fransen also had large followings.

Facebook says the decision to remove the pages was made after Britain First had ignored a final warning about the posting of material that broke its community standards.

The group will not be allowed to set up a replacement page.

It is understood that Facebook judged the videos and photos to be designed to incite hatred against Muslims.

Prime Minister Theresa May told the House of Commons that she welcomed the move and hoped other tech companies would follow.

London's mayor, Sadiq Khan has also issued a statement.

"Britain First is a vile and hate-fuelled group," he said.

"Their sick intentions to incite hatred within our society via social media are reprehensible, and Facebook's decision to remove their content is welcome."

Anti-hate rules

It is understood the offending posts included:

a photo of the group's leaders with the caption "Islamophobic and Proud"

a caption comparing Muslim immigrants with animals

multiple videos posted deliberately to incite hateful comments against Muslims

In a blog, Facebook said it was an open platform for all ideas but that political views 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 has been pressure for some time on Facebook to act against Britain First.

Image copyright Facebook Image caption The Facebook pages of party leaders, Paul Golding and Jayda Fransen, have also been removed

The social media company says it removes hate speech against people based on their race, religion, gender and other characteristics.

Its community standards document states: "Organisations and people dedicated to promoting hatred against these protected groups are not allowed a presence on Facebook."

Twitter suspended the accounts of Paul Golding and Jayda Fransen, after its new anti-abuse rules came into force last December.

US President Donald Trump had retweeted anti-Islamic videos posted by Fransen the previous month.</s>Facebook bans Britain First for inciting 'animosity and hatred' against minorities

The group raised shackles in England, especially after President Trump retweeted several of its anti-Islamist posts.</s>LONDON — Facebook has taken down the official home page of the far-right group Britain First along with the pages of its two leaders because they violate the company’s standards.

The group gained prominence in November when U.S. President Donald Trump retweeted some of its anti-Muslim videos, angering British leaders.

Facebook said Wednesday that content posted by the group and party leaders Paul Golding and Jayda Fransen “has repeatedly broken our community standards” despite written warnings, and incites hatred against minority groups.

The two Britain First leaders were recently convicted of religiously-aggravated harassment.

The group opposes what it calls the “Islamization” of Britain.</s>
• Facebook has banned pages belonging to far-right political group Britain First and its leaders Paul Golding and Jayda Fransen.
• The company first said it was reviewing the pages in December, after Twitter banned the group and YouTube restricted some of their videos.
• Britain First has been described by Prime Minister Theresa May as a hate group, and is the main far-right organisation in the UK.
• Fransen and Golding still have accounts on another Facebook-owned platform, Instagram.



Facebook has banned pages for the far-right group Britain First and its two leaders, Paul Golding and Jayda Fransen, from its platform.

The company said in a post that the group had repeatedly violated its policies and, after a final warning, neither the organisation or its leaders can set up new pages on Facebook.

The group hasn't been totally kicked off Facebook. A search shows that Jayda Fransen still has a personal Facebook account, and several apparently unofficial pages dedicated to her.

Specifically, offences included a photo of Fransen and Golding tagged "Islamaphobic and Proud," a post caption that compares Muslim immigrants with animals, and several videos that deliberately incite hateful comments against Muslims.

"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."

If you search for "Official Britain First," "Paul Golding Official Page," and "Jayda Fransen Official Page" on Facebook, all three have been deleted from the platform.

The news comes after Facebook's European policy chief, Simon Milner, told politicians the company would review Britain First's accounts. The group is already banned from Twitter.

Fransen and Golding still have accounts on another Facebook-owned platform, photo site Instagram. When Business Insider highlighted this in December, a source with knowledge of the matter said the pair's accounts were under review. Their "official" Instagram accounts are still publicly available, and while the pair have tried to avoid anything that obviously looks like hate speech, they have captioned some photos with comments such as "NO MORE MOSQUES."

Britain First has been described by Prime Minister Theresa May as a "hateful" organisation. It is the main far right group in the UK.

The group's social media activities came under particular scrutiny after Jayda Fransen posted several anti-Islamic videos and was then retweeted by Donald Trump. He was condemned across British politics, but Britain First's leaders were overjoyed by the attention. Fransen subsequently changed her Twitter profile header image to a photoshopped picture of her with Trump.

Twitter banned Fransen, Golding, and Britain First as part of new rules taking stricter action against accounts affiliated on or offline with hate speech or hateful conduct. YouTube has also placed restrictions on some Britain First videos, though the material is still available.</s>Facebook has removed the official page of far-right group Britain First, along with those of party leader Paul Golding and deputy leader Jayda Fransen.

The social network said it had taken action after they repeatedly broke the site's community standards on hate speech.

Mr Golding and Ms Fransen were jailed earlier this month after being convicted of religiously-aggravated harassment in Kent last year.

Facebook said they had continued to violate its rules despite issuing written final warnings over their conduct.

"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," Facebook said.

"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."

Facebook confirmed the violating content included an image of the group's leaders with the caption 'Islamophobic and Proud' and multiple videos which Facebook said had been posted deliberately to incite hateful comments against Muslims.

The social network also confirmed that the group will not be allowed to set up an official Facebook page in the future.

When questioned by MPs at the end of last year, Facebook policy head Simon Milner told the House of Commons Home Affairs Select Committee that Facebook was "reviewing" the group's page after other social networks such as Twitter and YouTube suspended group accounts.

In response to questions over why the group had remained on the site, Mr Milner said Britain First had until recently been registered with the Electoral Commission and therefore "deemed legitimate" by the authorities, but there were "clearly issues" with the page.

He added the site was "very cautious" about political speech, and in Facebook's statement on the page removal, the company reiterated its stance.

"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," the social network said.

"People can express robust and controversial opinions without needing to denigrate others on the basis of who they are."

Following its suspension from Twitter in December, Mr Golding said the group was looking for new social networks to join and urged supporters to follow.</s>The far-right group Britain First and its leaders have been banned from Facebook.

Britain First is a nationalist group known for its anti-Islam and anti-immigration views.

The social network says the group and leader Paul Golding and deputy leader Jayda Fransen had 'repeatedly broken' community standards.

It comes after the administrators of the Britain First page were given a 'written final warning' about their conduct.

In a statement, Facebook said: "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."

It adds: "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."

A post featuring an image of the group's leaders with a caption "Islamophobic And Proud" is reported to be among the violations of Facebook's rules, as well as multiple anti-Muslim messages.

It comes a week after Ms Fransen and Mr Golding were found guilty in a British court of religiously aggravated harassment, and sentenced to 36 weeks and 18 weeks in prison respectively.

Britain First gained international attention last November after Donald Trump retweeted anti-Islam videos shared by Jayda Fransen on Twitter - with the US President sharply rebuked by the British government as a result.</s>Facebook has announced it has permanently deleted the accounts of the far-right extremist group Britain First, and its leaders, Paul Golding and Jayda Fransen.

Britain First are perhaps one of the most controversial elements in British politics. Although the party has never known success at the ballot box, it’s boasted the one of the largest social media reaches of any British political institution.

They became known for their inflammatory, emotionally-provocative, often ALL-CAPS posts, which pushed an unashamedly anti-Islam, anti-immigration, and eurosceptic perspective.

In a blog post published earlier today titled “Taking action against Britain First,” the company elaborated on its justification for banning the aforementioned accounts, saying that the trio “repeatedly posted content designed to incite animosity and hatred against minority groups.”

“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,” it said.

“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.”

The statement describes Facebook as “an open platform for all ideas,” but added that all pages, regardless of political affiliation, have to abide by its policies.

Facebook’s move isn’t much of a surprise. The writing has been on the wall for some time. In December, Facebook’s Policy Director, Simon Milner, told MPs the company was “reviewing” Britain First’s Facebook page.

It also follows Twitter suspending the accounts of Golding, Fransen, and Britain First in December, in a crackdown against far-right hate speech.

With access to traditional social media massively curtailed, the group has since moved to Gab, which is a popular refuge for those banned from Facebook and Twitter.

Taking Action Against Britain First on Facebook</s>In the latest part of its clean-up exercise, Facebook has removed pages of the far-right, anti-Islamic group Britain First. The social network has also closed down the pages of the leaders of the group -- well-known in the UK, and also brought to US attention after Donald Trump shared its tweets.

The ban is such that Britain First will not be able to create any pages in the future. Facebook says that the group has repeatedly violated rules against hate speech, and denies that the bans are an infringement of free speech.
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The company has not revealed exactly which posts were in violation of its policy, nor said anything about the precise nature of their content. However, it says that the main Britain First page, as well as those of leaders Paul Golding and Jayda Fransen, repeatedly broke rules about incitement of hatred against minority groups.

In a post entitled "Taking Action Against Britain First" Facebook says:

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. 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. Political parties, like individuals and all other organisations on Facebook, must abide by these standards and where a page or person repeatedly breaks our community standards we remove them.

Facebook says that the decision to implement bans was not taken lightly and that the moderators of the Britain First page, and Golding and Fransen, had received final written warnings about the content they were posting. These warnings were simply ignored.

The major of London, Sadiq Khan, issued a statement expressing his approval of Facebook's actions:</s>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.

Funded 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.
Facebook blocks Britain First, a far-right group that has been deregistered as a political party in the United Kingdom, because leaders Paul Golding and Jayda Fransen have repeatedly violated its community standards.