A week after six major firms pulled their ads from Facebook because their campaigns had appeared alongside promotions for a right-wing political party, the British government has done the same, directing its agency not to place ads on sites such as Facebook that feature user-generated content.

According to a report in The Times, The Central Office of Information (COI), which controls a £330 million ($672 million) ad budget, directed i-level, its buying agency, not to place its ads on sites like Facebook.

"Advertising has been paused temporarily on any websites that have not provided COI and i-level with the assurances our bookings require," said Jamie Galloway, COI director of digital media.

Facebook released a statement saying it was working to satisfy advertisers concerns about their ads appearing next to content they found objectionable.

"Facebook is committed to giving advertisers more control over the placement of advertising on the site," the statement read. "For those UK advertisers who don't want ads displayed alongside content that they find objectionable, we are working with them to find alternatives. UK advertisers now can choose whether or not to run their banner ads alongside group pages on Facebook. We are continuing to look into ways to apply our technology to give advertisers even more options in the future."