EU deputies blast racist Facebook groups

BRUSSELS, Nov. 12 (UPI) -- The European Parliament's Socialist deputies say the administrators of Facebook should remove anti-Gypsy hate groups from its social networking Web site.

German MEP and Socialist group leader Martin Schulz said the groups have links to known fascist organizations and should be banned from Facebook, the EU Observer reported Wednesday.

Some of the Facebook groups attacking Roma people, all based in Italy, have names such as "Let's burn them all", "Turn gypsies into fuel" and "Useful work for gypsies: testers of gas chambers," the Observer said.

Speaking on the 90th anniversary of the end of World War I, Schultz said: "It is shameful that on the day Europe marks the deaths of those who fell in war, Facebook is helping those who want to take us back to those dark days."

Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg has been loath to remove such controversial groups in the past, refusing, for example, to heed demands by members of Britain's parliament to remove four Facebook groups backing the fascist British National Party, the Observer reported.