Britain First Facebook page restored after far-right group labelled social network ‘fascist’ for taking it down

The far-right group called Facebook 'fascists' and its opponents 'bigots'

Andrew Griffin
Monday 30 November 2015 17:59 GMT
Comments
A Britain First member being watched over by police officers
A Britain First member being watched over by police officers (AFP)

Your support helps us to tell the story

From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The Independent is on the ground when the story is developing. Whether it's investigating the financials of Elon Musk's pro-Trump PAC or producing our latest documentary, 'The A Word', which shines a light on the American women fighting for reproductive rights, we know how important it is to parse out the facts from the messaging.

At such a critical moment in US history, we need reporters on the ground. Your donation allows us to keep sending journalists to speak to both sides of the story.

The Independent is trusted by Americans across the entire political spectrum. And unlike many other quality news outlets, we choose not to lock Americans out of our reporting and analysis with paywalls. We believe quality journalism should be available to everyone, paid for by those who can afford it.

Your support makes all the difference.

Facebook has restored Britain First’s page, an hour-and-a-half after the page was taken down.

Britain First — which claims to have 1.1 million supporters on Facebook — had its page removed without explanation. Many presumed that the site may have been permanently removed, but Facebook appears to have decided to fully restore the page.

The move frustrated Britain First, which said that Facebook was “fascist” and immediately launched a donation page ostensibly so that the far-right group could challenge Facebook in court.

Britain First said after the page was restored that it didn’t know why its page had been removed, but that it was “in talks with Facebook to see why”.

“We applaud Facebook for reversing their decision and yielding to common sense and fair play,” a Britain First statement said. “Our leftwing opponents went into temporary celebration when our page was closed down but now they are furious!”

On Twitter, the group described its opponents as "Leftwing bigots", and said that restoring the Facebook "fan page" had made them "furious".

A Facebook spokesperson told The Independent when the site went down that it was investigating why the site had been taken down. It has not issued a statement on the page being restored.

Join our commenting forum

Join thought-provoking conversations, follow other Independent readers and see their replies

Comments

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged inPlease refresh your browser to be logged in