Facebook belatedly removes racist Trump campaign ad

Image: Chip Somodevilla / getty

I mean, it’s not like Facebook could have known the Trump campaign ad was a transparently racist attempt to gin up anti-immigration sentiment just days before the midterms. Right?

After first approving the ad, which depicted a convicted murderer and falsely linked him to a group of migrants fleeing violence in Central America, for paid promotion, the Palo Alto-based social media company thought better of it Monday and decided that the race-baiting spot didn’t actually meet its high standards. 

The change was reported by CNN, and confirmed in a Facebook statement provided to Mashable. 

“This ad violates Facebook’s advertising policy against sensational content so we are rejecting it,” wrote a company spokesperson. “While the video is allowed to be posted on Facebook, it cannot receive paid distribution.”

Notably, it had received paid distribution before Facebook realized that, well, it shouldn’t have. 

Facebook isn’t the only one with some serious racist egg on its face. The New York Times reports that NBC ran a version of the ad during the New England Patriots and Green Bay Packers football game. 

And, of course, Donald Trump tweeted a longer version of it. 

So what changed on Facebook’s end? Well, the company decided that the ad violates its policy governing sensational content. That policy prohibits ads that “contain shocking, sensational, disrespectful or excessively violent content.”

Examples of which, provided on the policy page, include: “[images] that may shock or scare viewers,” “[images] that are scary, gory or sensational,” and “[ads] depicting violence or threats of violence.”

Facebook did not respond to a Mashable request to explain why the ad was allowed to run in the first place. 

Importantly, the video is still up on Facebook — just not as a paid post. The company’s community standards guidelines allow it to remain on the site, but a different set of rules cover paid posts. 

If only someone at Facebook had familiarized themselves with Facebook’s own policies, say, a few weeks ago, the company could have spared itself and the country from this entirely self-inflicted stumble.