The word Orwellian is overused. Yet few terms better describe the barrage of adverts that Facebook has been unleashing on British billboards.

In London on Wednesday, to choose a day at random, the social media juggernaut told rush-hour train commuters that “what matters to you matters to us” and it was “removing offensive content faster than ever”.

The advert did not mention that 12 days earlier, a white nationalist gunman had used Facebook to live broadcast a horrific 17-minute video of his attack on worshipping Muslims in Christchurch, New Zealand, that left 50 people dead. Nor did it acknowledge the threats of boycotts and lawsuits the company is facing as a result. Or the email that New Zealand’s privacy commissioner, John Edwards, sent Facebook executives to decry the “deep, deep pain and harm from the live-streamed massacre” on their network.