whh3 writes: The Wall Street Journal has an "exclusive" scoop about a report detailing that several counties host their own mail servers using a version of Exim that is vulnerable to exploitation (Warning: source paywalled; alternative source), exposing electing officials to potential interference during the upcoming cycle. "[Cybersecurity vendor Area 1 Security Inc.] found that officials in six small jurisdictions in Michigan, Missouri, Maine and New Hampshire, for example, were using a buggy version of a free software product called Exim, which has been linked to online attacks conducted by the Russian intelligence service known as the GRU," reports The Wall Street Journal. The report itself is online here. "The report, compiled by cybersecurity group Area 1 Security, found that over 50 percent of election administrators have 'only rudimentary or non-standard technologies' to protect against malicious emails from cyber criminals, with less than 30 percent using basic security controls to halt phishing emails," adds The Hill. "The study also found that around 5 percent of election administrators use personal emails, which are seen as less secure than government emails."

The researchers wrote in the report: "The disparate approaches to cybersecurity by state, local and county officials is such that should a cybersecurity incident occur in one small town, whether in a 'battleground state' or not, even if statistically insignificant, could cause troubling ripple effects that erode confidence in results across the entire country." They noted that 90 percent of cyberattacks begin with a phishing email.

In 100 days the U.S. will vote on whether Donald Trump, Joe Biden or somebody else should be America's president. But both candidates are also running political ads attacking social media — on social media.

"They're shooting the messenger while giving it lots of money," reports the Associated Press: Biden has focused on Facebook, with a #MoveFastFixIt campaign that admonishes Facebook for not doing enough to protect users from foreign meddling or being duped by falsehoods, particularly those spread by Trump about mail-in voting. His campaign just last month spent nearly $10,000 to run ads scolding the company on its own platform. "We could lie to you, but we won't," says one of Biden's ads.... Despite criticizing Facebook, Biden's campaign said it's still purchasing millions of dollars in Facebook ads because it's one of the few ways to counter Trump's false posts — since Facebook won't fact check him. The ads are also a cheap and effective way for the campaigns to rally supporters who are unhappy with the platforms, said Kathleen Searles, a Louisiana State University political communications professor. "We do know that anger can be very motivating — it motivates them to get their name on an email list, or donate $20," Searles said...

While Biden has focused on Facebook, Trump has honed in on Twitter, and occasionally Snapchat, with his campaign running online ads that accuse both companies of "interfering" in the election. Twitter became a Trump campaign target after the company rolled out its first fact check of his inaccurate tweet about voting in late May. Twitter has since applied similar labels to five other Trump tweets, including two that called mail-in ballots "fraudulent" and predicted that "mail boxes will be robbed" if voting doesn't take place in person... Republican leaders have since joined in railing against Twitter. This month, Rep. Jim Jordan, a firebrand conservative from Ohio, demanded Twitter hand over a full accounting, including emails, of how it decided to fact check the president...

Facebook could be next for a face-off with the president and his allies now that the company has vowed to label any posts — Trump's included — that violate its rules against voting misinformation or hate speech. Facebook has yet to take such action, though.

"Social media censorship is going to be a very potent campaign issue," Brooking said. "And there's going to be incentive from a number of folks running for office in 2020 to push the envelope still further, to try to invite more and more social media moderation because they see it as a potent political stunt."

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: President Trump's re-election campaign has accused Verizon, AT&T, and T-Mobile of "suppression of political speech" over the carriers' blocking of spam texts sent by the campaign. The fight was described Wednesday in an in-depth article by Business Insider and other reports. "The Trump campaign has been battling this month with the biggest US cellphone carriers over an effort to blast millions of cell users with texts meant to coax them to vote or donate," Business Insider wrote. "President Donald Trump's adviser and son-in-law, Jared Kushner, didn't appreciate it when AT&T, Verizon, and T-Mobile blocked mass campaign texts to voters. He called the companies to complain, setting off the legal wrangling."

When contacted by Ars, a Trump campaign spokesperson said that "any effort by the carriers to restrict the campaign from contacting its supporters is suppression of political speech. Plain and simple." The Trump campaign statement also said it "stands by the compliance of its texting programs" with the US Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA) and Federal Communications Commission guidelines. Business Insider wrote that "the showdown got serious at the start of July when Trump's team sent a blast of texts to people who hadn't signed up for them," and "a third-party firm hired to screen such messages for the major cellphone companies blocked the texts." The article said that campaign lawyers and the carriers "are still fighting over what kinds of messages the campaign is allowed to send and what the companies have the power to stop." Politico wrote about the dispute on Monday. "People familiar with the chain of events said Verizon, T-Mobile and AT&T flagged potential regulatory problems with the peer-to-peer messaging operation, which differs from robo-texting in that texts are sent individually, as opposed to a mass blast," Politico wrote. "But within Trump's orbit, the episode has further fueled suspicions that big tech companies are looking to influence the election." The Trump campaign has not explained why the texts are legal and shouldn't have been blocked. They also didn't say how many people they tried to send the texts to, or whether the texts were unsolicited or sent to people who had signed up for campaign communications.

Carriers "viewed the texts as a possible violation of federal anti-robocall laws and Federal Communications Commission rules that come with hefty fines," Business Insider reported, citing information provided by "two Republicans familiar with the effort." Trump "campaign operatives" contend that its texting "exists in a legal gray area that allows campaigns to blast cellphone users if the messages are sent manually," Business Insider also wrote.

The House has voted to bar federal employees from downloading the video-sharing app TikTok on government-issued devices as part of a $741 billion defense policy bill. From a report: Lawmakers voted 336-71 to pass the proposal, offered by Rep. Ken Buck (R-Colo.), as part of a package of bipartisan amendments to the National Defense Authorization Act. The prohibition would extend to members of Congress and congressional staff. National security concerns about TikTok, owned by Chinese tech giant ByteDance, have picked up steam amid fears that U.S. users' personal information could fall into the hands of government officials in Beijing.

TikTok has said it has never handed over user data to the Chinese government, and that it would not do so if asked. But the assurances have done little to assuage its critics on Capitol Hill and across Washington, who are now pushing for more sweeping action against the platform. Buck called TikTok a "serious national security threat" during a floor speech Monday before the vote and said the data the company collects from U.S. consumers "could be used in a cyberattack against our republic" if shared with Chinese government officials.

Florida Senator Marco Rubio said he hopes that UFOs are extraterrestrials and not advanced Chinese aircraft. From a report: In a July 16 interview with CBS reporter Jim DeFede about a range of topics, including the government's Covid-19 response and the possible existence of extraterrestrial life. "We have things flying over our military bases and places where we're conducting military exercises and we don't know what it is and it isn't ours," Rubio said. "Frankly, if it's something outside this planet that might actually be better than the fact that we've seen some sort of technological leap from the Chinese or Russians or some other adversary that allows them to conduct this sort of activity," Rubio said. "That to me is a national security risk and one we should be looking into."

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, under fire for allowing President Trump to post inflammatory statements on his platform, tells Axios there's no truth to whispers that the two have a secret understanding. From a report: Zuckerberg, facing a growing ad boycott from brands that say Facebook hasn't done enough to curtail hate speech, has become increasingly public in criticizing Trump. "I've heard this speculation, too, so let me be clear: There's no deal of any kind," Zuckerberg told Axios. "Actually, the whole idea of a deal is pretty ridiculous. I do speak with the president from time to time, just like I spoke with our last president and political leaders around the world," he added.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Bloomberg: Facebook is considering imposing a ban on political ads on its social network in the days leading up to the U.S. election in November, according to people familiar with the company's thinking. The potential ban is still only being discussed and hasn't yet been finalized, said the people, who asked not to be named talking about internal policies. A halt on ads could serve as a defense against misleading election-related content spreading widely right as people prepare to vote. Still, there are also concerns that an ad blackout could hurt "get out the vote" campaigns, or limit a candidate's ability to respond widely to breaking news or new information.

Facebook doesn't fact-check ads from politicians or their campaigns, a point of contention for many lawmakers and advocates, who say the policy means ads on the platform could be used to spread lies and misinformation. The social-media giant has been criticized in recent weeks by civil rights groups that say it doesn't do enough to remove efforts to limit voter participation, and a recent audit of the company found Facebook failed to enforce its own voter suppression policies when it comes to posts from U.S. President Donald Trump. Hundreds of advertisers are currently boycotting Facebook's advertising products as part of a protest against its policies.

The chief executive officer of Asia's largest IT services firm warned that a U.S. freeze on thousands of employment visas will only raise costs for American corporations like Wall Street banks, auto manufacturers and drugmakers. From a report: Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) CEO Rajesh Gopinathan told Bloomberg News the move has put massive stress on a huge swath of Indian-born engineers that have lived in the U.S. for years and helped support American clients, who will ultimately be the ones hurt most. His remarks were among the strongest public rebukes from India's $181 billion IT industry since U.S. President Donald Trump's June decree to halt approvals for a range of visas until the end of the year -- including those for intra-company transfers.

TCS and peers like Infosys have relied for years on the ability to send talent to work alongside their customers overseas, which include some of the largest electronics manufacturers and global retailers. Investors worry that the inability to do so will hurt their competitiveness in the largest international market. "The ignorance around this ruling should be addressed," Gopinathan said via video conference on Friday. "Playing with the status of people who've moved away from families and committed to spending five-six years in a foreign country without immigrant status to deliver value to customers, is a short-term gimmick," the executive said.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from MIT Technology Review: In just the last week, Google Docs has emerged as a way to share everything from lists of books on racism to templates for letters to family members and representatives to lists of funds and resources that are accepting donations. Shared Google Docs that anyone can view and anyone can edit, anonymously, have become a valuable tool for grassroots organizing during both the coronavirus pandemic and the police brutality protests sweeping the US. It's not the first time. In fact, activists and campaigners have been using the word processing software for years as a more efficient and accessible protest tool than either Facebook or Twitter.

It wasn't until the 2016 elections, when misinformation campaigns were rampant, that the software came into its own as a political tool. Melissa Zimdars, an assistant professor of communication at Merrimack College, used it to create a 34-page document titled "False, Misleading, Clickbaity-y, and/or Satirical 'News' Sources.'" Zimdars inspired a slew of political Google Docs, written by academics as ad hoc ways of campaigning for Democrats for the 2018 midterm elections. By the time the election passed, Google Docs were also being used to protest immigration bans and advance the #MeToo movement. Now, in the wake of George Floyd's murder on Memorial Day weekend, communities are using the software to organize. One of the most popular Google Docs to emerge in the past week is "Resources for Accountability and Actions for Black Lives," which features clear steps people can take to support victims of police brutality. It is organized by Carlisa Johnson, a 28-year-old graduate journalism student at Georgia State University.

Business Insider reports that some players are adapting their avatars in the game world of Animal Crossing: New Horizons to show their support for the Black Lives Matter movement in the real world: In "Animal Crossing: New Horizons," players are creating customized signs and clothing for their game characters that say "BLM" and depict symbols of "No justice, no peace...." Anyone with access to a Nintendo Online account can host an online protest in the game; one such virtual protest was held on June 7.

As there's a limit of only eight players allowed to be on another player's island at a time, interested players were directed to a site which put folks in line to gain access. When the player's turn came, they were given a special code needed to enter the island. The protest host made customized signs, pillows, and memorial photos, and carved out a special path and area on their island to hold the sit-in protest. Players were encouraged to bring in-game currency (also known as bells) to the island, which would be converted into a charity donation by the host in the name of the player who contributed. This protest raised money for six different charities. including the NAACP, the National Bail Fund Network, and the Southern Poverty Law Center.
Meanwhile, Forbes reports: Roblox, a popular game among children and early teens that announced 100 million active players last year, has become a small-scale battleground in the upcoming U.S. presidential elections. The BBC is reporting that hackers are taking over accounts to spread pro-Trump propaganda, dressing them up in red hats like Trump supporters and putting pro-Trump messages in profiles...

There are ton of posts on social media from players who say that their accounts have been hacked, and Gamespot notes that since Roblox accounts are indexed by Google, it's easy to see a ton of accounts featuring the same message in the "about field": Ask your parents to vote for Trump this year!#Maga2020. A search on Google yields about 1,800 results... They also appear to be spamming friend requests and friend lists to send out pro-trump messages far beyond the single hacked account.

"Starting in 2015 Mark Zuckerberg and Facebook rewrote their rules in order to not sanction then-candidate Donald Trump," writes Rick Zeman (Slashdot reader #15,628) — citing a new investigation by the Washington Post. (Also available here.)

After Trump's infamous "the shooting starts" post, Facebook deputies contacted the White House "with an urgent plea to tweak the language of the post or simply delete it," the article reveals, after which Trump himself called Mark Zuckerberg. (The article later notes that historically Facebook makes a "newsworthiness exception" for some posts which it refuses to remove, "determined on a case-by-case basis, with the most controversial calls made by Zuckerberg.") And in the end, Facebook also decided not to delete that post — and says now that even Friday's newly-announced policy changes still would not have disqualified the post: The frenzied push-pull was just the latest incident in a five-year struggle by Facebook to accommodate the boundary-busting ways of Trump. The president has not changed his rhetoric since he was a candidate, but the company has continually altered its policies and its products in ways certain to outlast his presidency. Facebook has constrained its efforts against false and misleading news, adopted a policy explicitly allowing politicians to lie, and even altered its news feed algorithm to neutralize claims that it was biased against conservative publishers, according to more than a dozen former and current employees and previously unreported documents obtained by The Washington Post. One of the documents shows it began as far back as 2015...

The concessions to Trump have led to a transformation of the world's information battlefield. They paved the way for a growing list of digitally savvy politicians to repeatedly push out misinformation and incendiary political language to billions of people. It has complicated the public understanding of major events such as the pandemic and the protest movement, as well as contributed to polarization. And as Trump grew in power, the fear of his wrath pushed Facebook into more deferential behavior toward its growing number of right-leaning users, tilting the balance of news people see on the network, according to the current and former employees...

Facebook is also facing a slow-burning crisis of morale, with more than 5,000 employees denouncing the company's decision to leave Trump's post that said, "when the looting starts, the shooting starts," up... The political speech carveout ended up setting the stage for how the company would handle not only Trump, but populist leaders around the world who have posted content that test these boundaries, such as Rodrigo Duterte in the Philippines, Jair Bolsonaro in Brazil and Narendra Modi in India...

"The value of being in favor with people in power outweighs almost every other concern for Facebook," said David Thiel, a Facebook security engineer who resigned in March after his colleagues refused to remove a post he believed constituted "dehumanizing speech" by Brazil's president.

House Democrats approved a bill to admit Washington, DC, as a state on Friday, marking the first time either chamber of Congress has advanced a DC statehood measure. From a report: The bill, introduced by DC's nonvoting House member, Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton, would shrink the federal capital to a small area encompassing the White House, Capitol building, Supreme Court, and other federal buildings along the National Mall. The rest of the city would become the 51st state, named the Washington, Douglass Commonwealth after abolitionist Frederick Douglass. The bill passed with a vote of 232-180. Rep. Collin Peterson of Minnesota was the only Democrat to join Republicans in voting against it. Independent Rep. Justin Amash of Michigan also voted no. The bill would grant DC two senators and make the existing sole House representative a voting member. It is unlikely to gain traction in the Republican-held Senate, however, and the White House said (PDF) this week that President Donald Trump would veto the bill if it came to his desk.

Proponents of making DC a state also point to the area's large population, which surpasses the populations of Wyoming and Vermont. As of June 2019, DC had more than 705,000 residents, according to estimates from the US Census Bureau. To become law, the bill's supporters argue it would only have to pass both chambers of Congress with a simple majority and then be signed by the President. They say the legislation's strategy of resizing the capital area would sidestep constitutional questions about making the rest of DC a state. But Republicans who oppose DC statehood maintain that adding the district as a state would require a constitutional amendment.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from NBC News: Sens. Ed Markey, D-Mass., and Jeff Merkley, D-Ore., introduced legislation Thursday that seeks to ban the use of facial recognition and other biometric surveillance technology by federal law enforcement agencies. The legislation would also make federal funding for state and local law enforcement contingent on the enactment of similar bans. The Facial Recognition and Biometric Technology Moratorium Act, is supported by Reps. Ayanna Pressley, D-Mass., and Pramila Jayapal, D-Wash. It comes at a time of intense scrutiny of policing and surveillance tools, and widespread protests after the killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis police custody in late May.

The bill would make it unlawful for any federal agency or official to "acquire, possess, access or use" biometric surveillance technology in the United States. It would also prohibit the use of federal funds to purchase such technology. The bill states that this type of surveillance technology could only be used if there was a federal law with a long list of provisions to ensure it was used with extreme caution. Any such federal law would need to stipulate standards for the use, access and retention of the data collected from biometric surveillance systems; standards for accuracy rates by gender, skin color and age; rigorous protections for due process, privacy, free speech, and racial, gender and religious equity; and mechanisms to ensure compliance with the act. It also stipulates that local or state governments would not be eligible to receive federal financial assistance under the Edward Byrne Memorial Justice Assistance Grant program, which funds police training, equipment and supplies, without complying with a similar law or policy.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: House Democrats yesterday unveiled a $100 billion broadband plan that's gaining quick support from consumer advocates. "The House has a universal fiber broadband plan we should get behind," Electronic Frontier Foundation Senior Legislative Counsel Ernesto Falcon wrote in a blog post. House Majority Whip James Clyburn (D-SC.) announced the Accessible, Affordable Internet for All Act, saying it has more than 30 co-sponsors and "invests $100 billion to build high-speed broadband infrastructure in unserved and underserved communities and ensure that the resulting Internet service is affordable." The bill text is available here.

In addition to federal funding for broadband networks with speeds of at least 100Mbps downstream and upstream, the bill would eliminate state laws that prevent the growth of municipal broadband. There are currently 19 states with such laws. The Clyburn legislation targets those states with this provision: "No State statute, regulation, or other State legal requirement may prohibit or have the effect of prohibiting any public provider, public-private partnership provider, or cooperatively organized provider from providing, to any person or any public or private entity, advanced telecommunications capability or any service that utilizes the advanced telecommunications capability provided by such provider." The bill also has a Dig Once requirement that says fiber or fiber conduit must be installed "as part of any covered highway construction project" in states that receive federal highway funding. Similar Dig Once mandates have been proposed repeatedly over the years and gotten close to becoming US law, but never quite made it past the finish line.

New submitter feross shares a report: A group of Senate Republicans is looking to force tech companies to comply with "lawful access" to encrypted information, potentially jeopardizing the technology's security features. On Tuesday, Republican lawmakers introduced the Lawful Access to Encrypted Data Act, which calls for an end to "warrant-proof" encryption that's disrupted criminal investigations. The bill was proposed by Sen. Lindsey Graham, chairman of the Senate Judiciary committee, along with Sens. Tom Cotton and Marsha Blackburn. If passed, the act would require tech companies to help investigators access encrypted data if that assistance would help carry out a warrant. Lawmakers and the US Justice Department have long battled with tech companies over encryption, which is used to encode data.

The Justice Department argues that encryption prevents investigators from getting necessary evidence from suspects' devices and has requested that tech giants provide "lawful access." That could come in many ways, such as providing a key to unlock encryption that's only available for police requests. The FBI made a similar request to Apple in 2016 when it wanted to get data from a dead terrorist's iPhone in a San Bernardino, California, shooting case. Giving access specifically to government agencies when requested is often referred to as an "encryption backdoor," something tech experts and privacy advocates have long argued endangers more people than it helps.

Optimism about the internet's role in politics peaked around the time of the Arab Spring, then steadily collapsed into alarm and despair until this weekend, when it ticked up again after President Donald Trump held a disappointing campaign rally. From a report: There are various ways to interpret the lower-than-expected turnout at the Tulsa, Oklahoma event, but among the most intriguing was the claim from a group of Korean pop fans that they'd undercut the campaign by coordinating to reserve thousands of tickets, then not showing up. They are likely giving themselves too much credit. Still, the narrative took hold for online observers as an example of a rare bright spot in the social media hellscape. The surge in activism from young Korean pop music enthusiasts has been one of the stranger plot lines of a uniquely unsettled time in American politics. Working together, they've rendered Twitter hashtags like #WhiteLivesMatter useless by filling them with music video clips, and they crashed a mobile app established by the Dallas Police Department to collect evidence of illegal activity at protests by overwhelming it with data.

This has gripped the imagination of some internet commentators, who noted how young people have reconstituted their "lightning-fast coordination and prodigious spamming abilities" for what the fans believe are righteous political causes. But spamming has historically been seen as a bad thing. When right-wing trolls coordinate to do things like pollute hashtags, pile onto people they dislike or disrupt the process of government it's regularly described as a serious threat to democracy. The tactics are remarkably similar, though the end goals are different.

Epic Games is apparently trying to navigate some difficult cultural waters, reports Engadget: Gamers report that Epic has removed all police cars from Fortnite as of the shooter's latest update, and the Wall Street Journal understands that it was in response to Black Lives Matter protests over police violence. The developer wasn't trying to make a "political statement," according to a WSJ source — rather, it was trying to be "sensitive about the issues" players are dealing with...

The broader game industry has endorsed the Black Lives Matter cause, including a message in Call of Duty: Modern Warfare and temporary shutdowns of GTA Online and Red Dead Online. Epic appears to be taking a milder approach with Fortnite, acknowledging the outrage without explicitly advocating for a cause. The company previously stressed that it wouldn't ban players for political speech.

Two major outdoor-goods retailers "have joined a boycott of Facebook after six civil rights groups called on businesses to stop advertising on Facebook in July," reports CNET, "to push the social network to do more to combat hate speech and misinformation..." The moves by the high-profile brands [North Face and REI] suggest the ad boycott, unveiled Wednesday, is beginning to gain traction. In addition to the two retailers, digital-advertising firm 360i urged its clients in an email to stop purchasing ads on Facebook in July, The Wall Street Journal reported on Wednesday. The Anti-Defamation League, the NAACP, Sleeping Giants, Colors of Change, Free Press and Common Sense say that boycotting advertising on Facebook will put pressure on the platform to use its $70 billion in annual advertising revenue to support people who are targets of racism and hate and to increase safety for private groups on the site.

"We have long seen how Facebook has allowed some of the worst elements of society into our homes and our lives. When this hate spreads online it causes tremendous harm and also becomes permissible offline," Anti-Defamation League CEO Jonathan Greenblatt said in a press release announcing the campaign. "Our organizations have tried individually and collectively to push Facebook to make their platforms safer, but they have repeatedly failed to take meaningful action. We hope this campaign finally shows Facebook how much their users and their advertisers want them to make serious changes for the better."

In a press call Wednesday, Facebook Vice President of Global Affairs and Communications Nick Clegg said the company doesn't allow hate speech on its platform. Facebook removed nearly 10 million posts for violating its rules against hate speech in the last quarter, he said, and most were taken down before users reported them. The social network relies on a mix of human reviewers and technology to moderate content, but detecting hate speech can be challenging because machines have to understand the cultural context of words.

"Of course, we would like to do even better than that," Clegg said. "We need to do more. We need to move faster, but we are making significant progress."
Among the groups' demands: removing all ads that contain hate speech -- or misinformation.

In an abrupt about-face, the movie theater chain AMC said Friday it would require guests to wear face masks when its theaters reopen, after CEO Adam Aron earlier said it would not. The Verge reports: "This announcement prompted an intense and immediate outcry from our customers, and it is clear from this response that we did not go far enough on the usage of masks," Aron said in a statement. "Accordingly, and with the full support of our scientific advisors, we are reversing course and are changing our guest mask policy. As we reopen theaters, we now will require that all AMC guests nationwide wear masks as they enter and enjoy movies at our theaters."

On Thursday, Aron told Variety the chain would not require patrons to wear face masks because it "did not want to be drawn into a political controversy," saying he thought it would be "counterproductive if we forced mask wearing on those people who believe strongly that it is not necessary." AMC, the largest theater chain in the world, plans to reopen in 450 of its 600 US locations on July 15th with limited capacity, after closing all of its theaters around the world in mid-March. The company posted a $2.2 billion net loss in the first quarter and made "virtually no revenue" in the last two weeks of March. AMC also said in its 8-K filing earlier this month that unless it was able to restart operations in July that "substantial doubt exists about our ability to continue as a going concern for a reasonable period of time."

Facebook on Thursday took down Trump campaign ads against antifa that prominently featured a symbol used by Nazis to designate political prisoners, a spokesperson for the company confirmed to The Hill. From the report: "We removed these posts and ads for violating our policy against organized hate," Facebook said in a statement. "Our policy prohibits using a banned hate group's symbol to identify political prisoners without the context that condemns or discusses the symbol." The ads featured an inverted red triangle, which was used by Nazis to identify political opponents including communists, social democrats and liberals at concentration camps.

The symbol was included in 88 ads run by pages for President Trump, Vice President Pence and "Team Trump" alongside text warning readers of "Dangerous MOBS of far-left groups" and asking them to sign a petition against antifa, a loose group of radical activists that use direct action to fight against fascism. Just the ads on Trump's page were seen as many 950,000 times before being taken down. The Trump campaign is defending using the image, calling it a "common Antifa symbol" in a statement to The Hill. The campaign directed The Hill toward shirts, stickers and posters on websites were users can upload whatever design they would like to. The most common symbol used to identify antifa is a black and red flag or three arrows inside a circle.