Fox News, NBC and Facebook remove Trump anti-immigration ad for being racist

Ahead of today’s midterm elections, three major television networks decided to pull the ad, which includes footage of a twice-deported Mexican immigrant who was sentenced to death for killing two police officers.

“Stop the caravan. Vote Republican. I’m Donald Trump and I approve this message,” says The President in the ad.

Critics have accused the ad of being insensitive and inflammatory, and it has widely been deemed a racist attack on immigrants. On Monday, it was removed by the world’s largest social networking site, Facebook.

“This ad violates Facebook’s advertising policy against sensational content so has been rejected. While the video is allowed to be posted on Facebook, it cannot receive paid distribution.” said a Facebook spokesperson.

The 30 second ad aired during an NFL game on NBC and Fox News over the weekend.

Following the backlash, NBCUniversal released a statement saying: “After further review we recognise the insensitive nature of the ad and have decided to cease airing it across our properties as soon as possible.”

Fox also pulled the ad yesterday “upon further review,” said its ad sales department president, Marianne Gambelli.

A third network, CNN, rejected and declared the ad as racist, tweeting: "CNN has made it abundantly clear in its editorial coverage that this ad is racist. When presented with an opportunity to be paid to take a version of this ad, we declined. Those are the facts."

Unsurprisingly, Brad Parscale, Trump’s campaign manager tweeted NBC, CNN and Facebook have chosen: “to stand with those ILLEGALLY IN THIS COUNTRY.” He failed to mention Fox’s decision.

Furthermore, on the eve of the election, Facebook, removed 30 accounts on its website along with 85 accounts on Instagram due to concerns they were linked with foreign entities wishing to influence the election.

Facebook has faced enormous backlash over its handling of foreign accounts and advertisers seeking to influence democratic elections in specific countries.

From an Irish perspective, Hot Press, along with various other groups in the the Repeal the 8th referendum, campaigned for Facebook to reveal details of its policy in relation to political advertising ahead of the referendum. This then led to Facebook banning all ads for the referendum to be taken out by foreign sources, which was seen as a victory for democratic structures in Ireland.