Facebook removes Trump ads with symbols once used by Nazis
Washington: Facebook has removed a campaign ad by President Donald Trump and Vice President Mike Pence that featured an upside-down red triangle, a symbol once used by Nazis to designate political prisoners, communists and others in concentration camps.
The company said in a statement Thursday that the ads violated our policy against organised hate."
A Facebook executive who testified at a House Intelligence Committee hearing on Thursday said the company does not permit symbols of hateful ideology unless they're put up with context or condemnation.
In a situation where we don't see either of those, we don't allow it on the platform and we remove it. That's what we saw in this case with this ad, and anywhere that that symbol is used, we would take the same action," said Nathaniel Gleicher, the company's head of security policy.
The Trump campaign spent more than 10,000 on the ads, which began running on Wednesday and targeted men and women of all ages across the U.S., though primarily in Texas, California and Florida.
In a statement, Trump campaign communications director Tim Murtaugh said the inverted red triangle was a symbol used by antifa so it was included in an ad about antifa. He said the symbol is not in the Anti-Defamation League's database of symbols of hate. The Trump campaign also argued that the symbol is an emoji.
But it is ironic that it took a Trump ad to force the media to implicitly concede that Antifa is a hate group," he added.
Antifa is an umbrella term for leftist militants bound more by belief than organizational structure. Trump has blamed antifa for the violence that erupted during some of the recent protests, but federal law enforcement officials have offered little evidence of this.
The ADL disputed that the red triangle was commonly used as an antifa symbol. The organization said the triangle was not in its database because it is a historical symbol and the database includes only those symbols used by modern-day extremists and white supremacists.
Whether aware of the history or meaning, for the Trump campaign to use a symbol one which is practically identical to that used by the Nazi regime to classify political prisoners in concentration camps to attack his opponents is offensive and deeply troubling, ADL chief executive officer Jonathan Greenblatt said in a statement.
The action comes as Facebook and other technology companies face persistent criticism, particularly from Democrats, about whether they are doing enough to police the spread of disinformation and tweets and posts from Trump perceived as inflammatory.
Those questions arose during Thursday's hearing when a Twitter representative was asked why the company flagged but did not remove tweets from the president, including one that raised the prospect of shooting looters during the recent unrest in American cities.
Facebook, too, was asked why it did not remove a doctored video of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., last year that appeared to show her slurring her words.
If we simply take a piece of content like this down, it doesn't go away, Gleicher said. It will exist elsewhere on the internet. People who are looking for it will still find it.
With Thursday's hearing focused on the spread of disinformation tied to the 2020 election, the companies said they had not yet seen the same sort of concerted foreign influence campaigns like the one four years ago, when a Russian troll farm sowed discord online by playing up divisive social issues.
But that suggests the threat has evolved rather than diminished, said the executives, who pointed out that media companies controlled by the state were directly and openly engaging online on American social issues to affect public opinion.
China, for instance, has likened allegations of police brutality in the U.S. to the criticism it faced for its aggressive treatment of protesters in Hong Kong last year.
Preventing disinformation ahead of the election is a significant challenge in a country facing potentially dramatic changes in how people vote, with expected widespread use of mail-in ballots creating openings to cast doubt on the results and even spread false information.
Facebook said Thursday that it is working to help Americans vote by mail, including by notifying users about how to request ballots and whether the date of their state's election has changed.
The Vote By Mail notification connects Facebook users to information about how to request a ballot. It is targeted to voters in states where no excuse is needed to vote by mail or where fears of the coronavirus are accepted as a universal excuse.
Providing that accurate information is one of the best ways to mitigate those kinds of threats, Gleicher said.
Let the Truth be known. If you read VB and like VB, please be a VB Supporter and Help us deliver the Truth to one and all.
Iran offers to reopen Strait of Hormuz if US lifts its blockade and the war ends: officials
Cairo (AP): Iran has offered to end its chokehold on the Strait of Hormuz in exchange for the US lifting its blockade on the country and an end to the war, while proposing that discussions on the larger question of its nuclear programme would come in a later phase, two regional officials said Monday.
US President Donald Trump seems unlikely to accept the offer, which was passed to the Americans by Pakistan and would leave unresolved the disagreements that led the US and Israel to go to war on February 28.
With a fragile ceasefire in place, the US and Iran are locked in a standoff over the strait, through which a fifth of the world's traded oil and gas passes in peacetime. The US blockade is designed to prevent Iran from selling its oil, depriving it of crucial revenue while also potentially creating a situation where Tehran has to shut off production because it has nowhere to store the oil.
The strait's closure, meanwhile, has put pressure on Trump, as oil and gasoline prices have skyrocketed ahead of crucial midterm elections, and it has pressured his Gulf allies, which use the waterway to export their oil and gas.
The closure has also had far-reaching effects throughout the world economy, raising the price of fertilizer, food and other basic goods.
The proposal would push off negotiations on Iran's nuclear programme to a later date. Trump said one of the major reasons he went to war was to deny Iran the ability to develop nuclear weapons.
The two officials, who had knowledge of the proposal, spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the closed-door negotiations between Iranian and Pakistani officials this weekend. The Axios news outlet first reported Iran's proposal.
It came as Iran's foreign minister visited Russia, which has long been a key backer of Tehran. It's unclear what, if any, assistance Moscow might offer now.
Strait of Hormuz remains blocked
===================
Iran's ability to choke off traffic in the Strait of Hormuz, the narrow mouth of the Persian Gulf, has proved one of its biggest strategic advantages in a war that has often boiled down to which side can take more pain.
Oil prices have risen steadily since the war began and tankers full of crude became stranded in the Persian Gulf, unable to safely transit through the strait and reach global distribution points.
On Monday, the spot price of Brent crude, the international standard, was trading at around $108 per barrel, nearly 50 per cent higher than when the war began.
Iranian foreign minister holds talks as negotiations with US stall
===============================
Trump last week indefinitely extended the ceasefire the US and Iran agreed to on April 7 that has largely halted fighting. But a permanent settlement remains elusive in the war that has killed thousands of people.
Iran's state-run IRNA news agency said Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi landed in St. Petersburg on Monday morning ahead of a meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
“It is a good opportunity for us to consult with our Russian friends about the developments that have occurred in relation to the war during this period and what is happening now,” Araghchi said in a video interview posted by IRNA.
It comes as Pakistan has been seeking to revive stalled talks between Iran and the US, and negotiations had been expected in Islamabad over the weekend. Instead, Trump called off a trip by his envoys and suggested the talks could take place by phone instead.
Over the weekend, Araghchi made two stops in Pakistan and a visit to Oman, which shares the strait with Iran. He also spoke by phone with counterparts in Qatar and Saudi Arabia on Sunday.
Iran wants to persuade Oman to support a mechanism to collect tolls from vessels passing through the strait, according to a regional official who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorised to discuss the matter.
Oman's response wasn't immediately clear.
The official, who is involved in mediation efforts, also said Iran insisted on ending the US blockade before new talks and that Pakistan-led mediators are trying to bridge significant gaps between the countries.
Trump says Iran has offered a much better proposal
===========================
Trump told journalists Saturday that after he called off a trip by his envoys to Pakistan, Iran sent a “much better” proposal.
He did not elaborate but stressed that one of his conditions is that Iran “will not have a nuclear weapon”.
Iran insists its programme is peaceful, but the US wants to remove Tehran's stockpile of highly enriched uranium, which could be used to build a bomb, should Tehran choose to pursue one.
Since the war began, at least 3,375 people have been killed in Iran and at least 2,509 people in Lebanon, where fighting between Israel and the Iran-backed Hezbollah militant group resumed two days after the Iran war started. Another 23 people have been killed in Israel and more than a dozen in Gulf Arab states. Fifteen Israeli soldiers in Lebanon, 13 US service members in the region and six UN peacekeepers in southern Lebanon have been killed.
The ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah has been extended by three weeks. Hezbollah has not participated in the Washington-brokered diplomacy.
