CNN’s Alisyn Camerota characterized Louis Farrakhan a “far-right extremist” Friday morning — after the Washington Post issued a correction Thursday that he had been mislabeled as a “far-right” leader in a story about how he was barred from Facebook.
“Facebook is banning several far-right extremists from its services because it considers them dangerous,” Camerota said Friday morning. “This includes the Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan, right-wing conspiracy theorist Alex Jones. Also banned, Paul Nehlen — an anti-Semite who ran unsuccessfully for Congress.”
Simultaneously, the chyron that CNN ran Friday morning said “Facebook bans far-right extremists from its services.”
On Thursday afternoon, outlets including the Post reported that Facebook had barred some extremist leaders for being “dangerous.”
The Post then published a headline to accompany their piece titled “Facebook bans far-right leaders including Louis Farrakhan, Alex Jones, Milo Yiannopoulos for being dangerous.” Similarly, the body of the piece also labeled Farrakhan as a “far-right figure.”
Following backlash, the piece was later updated to swap “far right” with “extremist.” The Post also issued a correction: “Louis Farrakhan is an extremist leader who has espoused anti-Semitic views. An earlier version of this story and headline incorrectly included him in a list of far-right leaders.”
Farrakhan, who has ties to multiple Democratic lawmakers, has led the Nation of Islam religious group since 1975, and has been a controversial leader because of anti-Semitic and anti-white comments. For example, he made controversial comments during a Saviours’ Day 2018 address, including that “the powerful Jews are my enemy” and “white folks are going down.”
He has met with members of the Congressional Black Caucus, and has been praised by leaders of the Women’s March.
