Facebook has failed to remove hate groups and far-right usernames that are on its own banned list, an investigation has found.
Community Security Trust (CST), a Jewish charity that monitors antisemitism, checked Facebook content against the platform’s own blacklist of banned organisations and individuals.
The list, which includes more than 4,000 groups and single users placed under headings such as “terror”, “hate” and “crime”, was leaked last week to the Intercept news outlet.
CST found banned far-right content on numerous Facebook pages and on dozens of accounts on Instagram, which is owned by the same company.
The charity said it showed that Facebook was not capable of enforcing its own rules and questioned why its algorithms did not pick up the content.
There were dozens of profiles in the name of Oswald Mosley, the founder of the British Union of Fascists, who is on the banned list. Many profiles featured his photo or fascist insignia.
Instagram profiles glorified figures in the Nazi party, and there were Facebook pages that celebrated Elliot Rodger, who killed six people in California in 2014 and has become a hero of the incel movement.
