Facebook has announced that it will remove any content that denies or distorts the Holocaust or any information about it. It was reported in the company's blog.
Facebook explained that this decision was made due to "the well-documented rise in anti-Semitism globally and the alarming level of ignorance about the Holocaust, especially among young people." The company's recent survey showed that almost a quarter of Americans aged 18-39 said they believed the Holocaust was a myth and that it had been exaggerated.
To combat anti-Semitism, Facebook will direct its users looking for information about the Holocaust to authoritative sources.
Kay Lee
The social media giant’s decision follows a year of expert consultations. The report also said that the company recently blocked anti-Semitic posts spreading stereotypes that depict Jewish people as "running the world or its major institutions."
Kay Lee
Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg announced in the summer of 2018 that the social network had no plans to remove anti-Semitic posts. He said that as a Jew, he also considered such posts offensive, but at the same time, he advocates freedom of speech. According to Zuckerberg, you can't ban people for misconceptions about certain things if they express their opinions and not plan any violence.
Zuckerberg now says his mind changed after he saw research on the rise of anti-Semitism in the world.
Ivan Tkachenko
"Enforcement of these policies cannot happen overnight. 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. We are grateful to many partners for their input and candor as we work to keep our platform safe, " said Facebook’s VP of content policy, Monika Bickert, in a blog post.
