A number of Facebook pages belonging to far-right groups, including Britain First, are being investigated for possible copyright infringement.
Four of the groups being looked at by Facebook have repeatedly taken articles from established news sites and reproduced them word for word on their own websites without attribution or backlinks.
These have then been promoted on Facebook pages belonging with the groups, again with no reference to the original source.
This article, for instance, originally appeared in the Daily Star yet is reproduced on the Britain First website, making the group money from advertising for each click.
Numerous other possible infringements appear to go back months.
As well as Britain First’s page, Christian Fightback News, Patriot News Hub and Counter Jihad UK are all being investigated by social media giant for potentially violating their terms and conditions.
Under section 5 of Facebook’s terms, “Protecting Other People’s Rights”, paragraphs 1 and 5 state:
1) You will not post content or take any action on Facebook that infringes or violates someone else’s rights or otherwise violates the law.
5) If you repeatedly infringe other people’s intellectual property rights, we will disable your account when appropriate.
The disabling of Britain First’s page would be disastrous for the registered political group, as the majority of their public reach is achieved through Facebook.
The group uses it to spread its anti-Muslim message to its 1.5million followers, but has failed to gain the same traction on any other social media platform.
On Twitter, for example, it only has a following of 11,700, while meetings and conferences usually fail to muster more than 30 attendees.
The four pages under investigation appear to be four separate groups, but Britain First and the other pages regularly share content.
Additionally, Christian Fightback News, Patriot News Hub and Counter Jihad UK all promote Britain First membership, their merchandise and the Facebook page ofBritain First deputy leader, Jayda Fransen.
Just today, Patriot News Hub posted a link to an article on the Christian Fightback News website about Islamic State fighters in Sweden.
A quick Google search of the first line shows the article originally appeared in The Sun in October and has been copied verbatim with no attribution.
This is just one example of hundreds across the four pages. Others include:
Counter Jihad UK’s Facebook page appears to be restricted but Google search results for it shows it promoting Fransen.
A spokesperson confirmed to The Huffington Post UK that Facebook is investigating the possible infringements.