Facebook has banned far-right group Britain First

Facebook has taken down the page of the far-right, anti-Islamic group Britain First, as well as the pages of the group's leaders Paul Golding and Jayda Fransen.

In a blog post, Facebook say they sent the administrators of the Britain First page a written warning about their persistent breach of community standards. Britain First continued to post content that violates these standards, and so Facebook removed the pages.

"We do not do this lightly," said Facebook in the announcement, "but they have repeatedly posted content designed to incite animosity and hatred against minority groups, which disqualifies the Pages from our service."

The BBC reported that the content in question included:

• a photo of the group's leaders with the caption "Islamophobic and Proud"

• a caption comparing Muslim immigrants with animals

• multiple videos posted deliberately to incite hateful comments against Muslims

Golding and Fransen were both jailed earlier this month for hate-crimes against Muslims.

Some anti-muslim videos posted by Fransen were retweeted by President Trump back in November 2017.

London Mayor Sadiq Khan, who recently called for social media companies to be more pro-active in tackling hate-speech on their platforms, welcomed the decision.

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"We are an open platform for all ideas and political speech goes to the heart of free expression," said Facebook. "But political views can and should be expressed without hate. People can express robust and controversial opinions without needing to denigrate others on the basis of who they are."

Mashable has reached out to Facebook for further comment.