Ads for the British far right group Britain First have been pulled from Facebook, in a move that it has branded 'political discrimination'.
The ads appeared on the page of Political Gamers TV, a group that describes itself as 'dedicated to gamers worldwide who wish no limits on speech'. In practice, this mostly means heavily-capitalized posts about 'crazy SJWs', 'crazy feminists' and 'crazy leftists'.
The three ads appeared on the site over the Christmas period, despite the fact that Britain First was banned by Facebook last March on the grounds that its posts violated its community standards.
The ads were for a petition complaining about the rebuilding and refurbishment of a twenty-year-old mosque in the Kent town of Maidstone. The new building will include classrooms, a library and space to help the local homeless population.
But when the plans were approved two years ago, Britain First described it as a 'grotesque three-storey structure' that was 'part of the ongoing plan for the Islamification of Britain'. (It may be worth noting here that Muslims amount to just five per cent of the British population).
Shortly after the ads for the petition were pulled, the Political Gamers TV page was itself deleted by Facebook. The group is outraged.
"Facebook has claimed we are connected to the Britain First movement," says Political Gamers UK director Stevie Cowee in a statement on the Britain First website. "Facebook has been informed many times by myself that we are just covering the activities of Britain First like other mainstream media."
Britain First itself adds: "Facebook has made it plainly obvious that Britain First itself is banned from the platform, but now this censorship has escalated and expanded to include anyone who even mentions our movement."
This clearly isn't the case, given that the nature of the ads, that were quite obviously a petition rather than any sort of reporting.
After it was banned from Facebook, Britain First announced last October that it was planning to sue Facebook for 'political discrimination' - illegal in Northern Ireland through the Good Friday Agreement and other legislation.
To try and justify this, it has since applied to be registered as a political party in Northern Ireland; it says it wants its page reinstated, and damages paid.
It says the case will be both 'a hammer blow to leftwing censorship' and a 'mighty crusade for free speech against the fascist social media tech giants'. Facebook isn't commenting.
