#Neo-Nazi bands have been using Facebook to spread their music: report

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Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg
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Facebook is rushing to scrub neo-Nazi music groups from its platform after a new report found that they’ve been advertising themselves on the site for years.

The social network recently removed more than 120 pages belonging to heavy metal groups and record labels “with direct ties to white supremacy,” according to Al Jazeera. Some of the pages, which altogether have more than 800,000 likes, have been around since at least 2010.

The pages were actively posting until recently, advertising upcoming concerts and music releases, as well as selling merchandise that features white supremacist imagery, the report found.

The bands include one from Ukraine whose name translates to “Hitler’s Hammer,” and whose songs use portions of a speech from Nazi propagandist Joseph Goebbels.

Another French band claims that it is nationalist anarchist, not white supremacist, but has songs called “Aryan Supremacy” and “The Death Camps,” according to Al Jazeera.

A third band from Mexico uses a photo of the entry gate at the Auschwitz death camp as the cover for one of its albums.

Facebook removed the pages after it was contacted by Al Jazeera, acknowledging that they broke the site’s rules.

“Unfortunately zero tolerance doesn’t mean zero incidents,” the company said in a statement. “We will continue to improve our technologies, evolve our policies, and work with experts to identify and remove hate from our platform.”

The report arrives as Facebook is facing withering criticism from civil rights organizations for failing to police hate speech and misinformation on its platform.

More than 400 brands — including Coca-Cola, Nike, Ford and Starbucks — have pulled their ads from the platform for the month of July in support of the organizers.

Shares of Facebook were down 1.2 percent Friday morning, at $241.57.