Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
Fast Forward

Facebook will begin removing Holocaust denial, after pressure from Jewish groups

Facebook updated its hate speech policy to ban content that “denies or distorts” the Holocaust, the platform announced Monday.

“I’ve struggled with the tension between standing for free expression and the harm caused by minimizing or denying the horror of the Holocaust,” said CEO Mark Zuckerberg in a statement on Facebook. “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.”

Facebook said its decision is related to growing antisemitism around the world and a recent survey that found that almost a quarter of American adults under the age of 39 believed that the Holocaust was a myth, that it was exaggerated or they weren’t sure.

Facebook has been a consistent home for Holocaust denial for years. A report from a think tank published in August found 36 Facebook groups, with hundreds of thousands of members, that actively posted Holocaust denial.

The report found that Facebook not only did not remove Holocaust-denying posts, but recommended them to people who had viewed similar content in the past.

Facebook has responded in recent weeks to pressure to work harder to combat hate speech on the platform. The most visible pressure has come from the Anti-Defamation League, which encouraged advertising boycotts against the platform over the summer. The World Jewish Congress has worked more closely with Facebook executives to try and shape their policies.

Facebook announced a new policy last week about banning QAnon accounts, but experts say there will be a delay in enforcement that could be harmful.

A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.

At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse..

Readers like you make it all possible. Support our work by becoming a Forward Member and connect with our journalism and your community.

—  Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

Join our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines. You must credit the Forward, retain our pixel and preserve our canonical link in Google search.  See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.