Mark Zuckerberg on Charlottesville: Facebook will remove violent threats

CEO says Facebook is 'watching closely' and will 'take down threats of physical harm', joining raft of tech companies purging white nationalists and neo-Nazis

Mark Zuckerberg broke his silence on the white supremacist violence in Charlottesville last weekend, writing in a Facebook post on Wednesday that the social network is "watching the situation closely and will take down threats of physical harm".

The CEO's statement was made four days after a counter-protester was killed at a "Unite the Right" rally that used a Facebook event to recruit attendees, and a day after he published a post about a new data center Facebook is building in Ohio. The social network also appears to be deleting a number of white nationalist and neo-Nazi profiles and pages.