POPULIST BRITISH NEWS SITE POLITICALITE TEMPORARILY BANNED FROM FACEBOOK – OUSTED TROLL OF THE MONTH

The Troll of the Month is an incident we choose every month to expose racist and anti-religious haters and to show the positive outcomes in the fight against intolerance in Europe.

Populist British news site Politicalite was temporarily banned from Facebook. Politicalite has regularly been highlighted by Get The Trolls Out! with partner the Media Diversity Institute monitoring it continuously for incidents of religious hate speech. 

In March 2019, the platform covered the New Zealand terrorist attacks by focussing on the perpetrator, not the victims. In January Politicalite hosted an opinion piece by For Britain founder Anne Marie Waters which made deceitful and false claims of the government giving preferential treatment to Muslims over ‘native’ British citizens. In November of last year the site published a misleading photo which fuelled hostility towards Muslims and asylum seekers. Get The Trolls Out! also succeeded in getting Politicalite to correct a misleading figure in one of their articles, which also adopted an anti-Muslim stance. 

Politicalite had a strong presence on Facebook, reportedly reaching 2.7 million people on the platform in March. The temporary ban came shortly after Politicalite started heavily sharing coverage of Tommy Robinson’s EU election campaign trail. According to Facebook, the page was taken off the platform for violating the company’s community standards on hate speech.  The move comes at a time where Facebook has banned several UK far-right figures from the platform, including former BNP leader Nick Griffin and Britain First’s Paul Golding and Jayda Fransen. 

Politicalite has actively been reporting on the ban, claiming that “last week, the UK became a country that censors news outlets and cracks down on dissent and criticism of the Government… just like, yep, you got it… The People’s Republic of China.” It has also proudly given itself the name of ‘Britain’s Most Censored News Outlet’, with this as a logo regularly displayed front and centre on the website. While the Facebook ban is positive, it is clear that Politicalite is undeterred, and it is therefore essential to continue to monitor and report on religious hate speech when it occurs.