Petition Text:
Facebook, you were right to take down ads from the President of the United States using a Nazi concentration camp symbol — less than 24 hours after massive public outcry.
But why did you leave up hundreds of similar ads, all spreading dangerous lies about millions of Americans protesting the murder of George Floyd? And why have you let Trump continue to call for violence against Black people?
It’s past time for you to take anti-Black racism as seriously as you take Nazi imagery. Bigotry and disinformation are dangerous to our lives and democracy, period.
As Jewish Americans and allies we demand you:
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- Notify all users who were exposed to Trump’s ads (including the ones you left up), alert them to why it was harmful, and share the facts debunking the ads’ claims.
- Develop policies to prevent and remove ads that spread hate-based disinformation, incite violence against Black people, or promote white supremacist ideology
- Fire Joel Kaplan, Vice President of Global Public Policy, who has stood in the way of reforms and perpetuated anti-Black policies.
Context matters:
The President of the United States has campaigned for reelection using a Nazi concentration camp symbol.
The red triangle was used by Nazis to mark political prisoners and dissidents.
Trump and the RNC used it to smear millions of people protesting racist police violence.
For years, Trump and his cronies have used carefully-targeted antisemitic rhetoric and imagery to go after their opponents, while inciting violence against Jewish and Muslim people, immigrants, Black people, and people of color.
Years and years of anti-Black content has been allowed to go unchecked on Facebook, including messages from Trump advocating violence against Black protesters. Why only take down ads with Nazi imagery? Take down all bigoted disinformation that incites violence.
Facebook must stop valuing their political advertising revenue over our lives and our democracy by taking steps to inform users about the disinformation they were exposed to (like they’ve done for Covid-19), developing policies to prevent and remove such ads in the future, and firing Joel Kaplan, who has attacked Black-led civil rights groups fighting for such reforms.
For years, our friends at Color of Change, the nation’s largest online racial justice organization, have called on Facebook to make their platform safer for the millions of Black people that use it — including our Black Jewish family.
As Jews and allies, we must get into the fight to demand Facebook take anti-Black racism as seriously as it does antisemitism and Nazi imagery: add your name.