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Facebook to ban content which denies and distorts the Holocaust

WION Web Team
New Delhi, IndiaUpdated: Oct 12, 2020, 09:01 PM IST
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Photograph:(Reuters)

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Facebook Inc on Monday announced plans to update its hate speech policy to ensure no content that distorts or denies the Holocaust gets any visibility on its platform

Facebook Inc on Monday announced plans to update its hate speech policy to ensure no content that distorts or denies the Holocaust gets any visibility on its platform.

According to the company, starting later in 2020, Facebook will link information, i.e., people looking for terms associated with the Holocaust would be rerouted to credible information on other websites/portals.

In 2018, Facebook Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg had opposed deletion of such content. During an interview with website Recode, Zuckerberg had claimed that he found denial of Holocaust very offensive, but also believed Facebook should not delete content, citing the tension between free expression and the harm it causes.

"I've struggled with the tension between standing for free expression and the harm caused by minimizing or denying the horror of the Holocaust," Zuckerberg, who is Jewish, said on Facebook on Monday.

"My own thinking has evolved as I've seen data showing an increase in anti-Semitic violence, as have our wider policies on hate speech," he said.

The decision was praised by the World Jewish Congress and the American Jewish Committee.

"For several years, the World Jewish Congress has advocated for Facebook to remove Holocaust denial content from its platform, and has worked with the social media company’s policy teams to review such posts and classify them as hate speech under the company’s community standards," the World Jewish Congress said in a statement.

"Enforcement of these policies cannot happen overnight," Facebook announced in a blog post. "There is a range of content that can violate these policies, and it will take some time to train our reviewers and systems on enforcement”, the post added.