Breitbart deletes inflammatory tweet suggesting Muslims will end Super Bowl
Far right site says the social media post did not meet its 'editorial standards'
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Your support makes all the difference.Far right website, Breitbart has deleted a tweet suggesting Muslims would bring the Super Bowl to a halt if they were to gain control of America, because it "did not meet our editorial standards".
The supposedly satirical post linked to one of its articles on declining National Football League (NFL) TV ratings for the annual championship game, included a picture of players from the New England Patriots kneeling and linking arms earlier this year.
Many players across the NFL have chosen to kneel while the national anthem plays in protest against racial inequality in the US.
Imagining a future in which the Super Bowl no longer took place due to growing influence of Islam, Breitbart tweeted an imaginary exchange between a Muslim child and a grandparent about the Super Bowl.
“Back when the kuffar ran things, they stitched up filthy pig skins, moved them around painted lines and shoved each other," the grandfather replies to a question about the game.
“Kuffar” is a derogatory word in Arabic for non-Muslims and pork is forbidden in Islam.
The website is known to make frequent references to both terms in its social media coverage of Muslims.
After posting the tweet on Sunday night, it was roundly criticised by social media users, some of whom branded it racist and Islamophobic.
The post was deleted over 12 hours later and the website said it did not tally with their “editorial standards”.
The website has previously been criticised for its anti-Muslim rhetoric. Last year it sacked an editor who made a number of anti-Muslim remarks in the wake of the London Bridge terror attack.
Katie McHugh, who wrote hundreds of articles for the website, wrote: “There would be no deadly terror attacks in the UK if Muslims didn't live there."
Critics on social media pointed to the fact Ms Hugh’s initial tweet overlooked the long history of deadly terror attacks in the UK carried out by the IRA, a predominantly Catholic group, between the late 1960’s and the late 1990’s.
Until his recent resignation, Donald Trump’s former White House Chief Strategist Steve Bannon served as the site's executive chairman.
He had previously described Breitbart as a "platform for the alt-right”.
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