ADL: Facebook fails to remove Holocaust denial despite ban

Facebook notifications Image by iStock
Would you consider a video about “Holohoax tales” or an Instagram post captioned “#HolocaustIsaLie” to be Holocaust denial content?
Facebook wouldn’t.
Facebook declined to remove Holocaust denial content that was pointed out to the platform, saying it did not violate its terms and conditions despite a ban on such material enacted in October of 2020, according to a new report out Wednesday from the Anti-Defamation League.
The report ranks social media platforms for their efforts to combat Holocaust denial, including metrics like whether or not the companies had explicit policies related to Holocaust denial and whether they responded to complaints within 24 hours.
The ADL reported that Facebook was the only platform they investigated that said content like the aforementioned video and comments on videos about the Holocaust saying, “How was it ever possible, that people with even half a brain believed this garbage?” did not violate their community standards.
Facebook’s policy forbids “denying the occurence of well-documented hate crimes” and “denial of the existence of a genocide, including the Holocaust.”
“Companies have not been nimble enough or taken the issue seriously,” said the Chief Executive Officer of the ADL, Jonathan Greenblatt, in a statement. “This is truly shameful at a time when antisemitic conspiracy theories are spreading globally, some outrageously based on the big lie that the Holocaust never happened.”
Facebook received widespread — if skeptical — praise for banning Holocaust denial last October after years of negotiating with groups combating hate speech online. The report appears to highlight another example of Facebook changing its terms and conditions to appease advocacy groups, only to fall apart on the issue of enforcement. The platform came under fire for similar failures in regulating Boogaloo extremist groups last summer.
Facebook, Instagram, Reddit, a messaging app called Discord and a video-game platform called Steam received the lowest rating for efforts to combat Holocaust denial.
The ADL praised Twitch, a livestreaming platform for video gamers, for being the most responsive to complaints and for having the most robust policies to combat Holocaust denial.
Twitter and Twitch were “the only platforms in the study who took immediate action when Holocaust denial content was reported to them by anonymous users,” said the report.
The ADL also highlighted a YouTube feature that directs users to credible videos that debunk myths about the Holocaust when they search “Holohoax” or “Holocaust denial.” A similar feature exists on TikTok and on another gaming platform, Roblox.
A survey last September found that nearly 50% of American adults under the age of 40 were exposed to Holocaust denial on social media.
The Forward is free to read, but it isn’t free to produce

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward.
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. We’ve started our Passover Fundraising Drive, and we need 1,800 readers like you to step up to support the Forward by April 21. Members of the Forward board are even matching the first 1,000 gifts, up to $70,000.
This is a great time to support independent Jewish journalism, because every dollar goes twice as far.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
2X match on all Passover gifts!
Most Popular
- 1
News A Jewish Republican and Muslim Democrat are suddenly in a tight race for a special seat in Congress
- 2
Fast Forward The NCAA men’s Final Four has 3 Jewish coaches
- 3
Film & TV What Gal Gadot has said about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict
- 4
Fast Forward Cory Booker proclaims, ‘Hineni’ — I am here — 19 hours into anti-Trump Senate speech
In Case You Missed It
-
News Who would protect New York Jews better? Cuomo and Lander trade attacks on the campaign trail
-
News Rabbis revolt over LGBTQ+ club, exposing fight over queer acceptance at Yeshiva University
-
Opinion In Qatargate fiasco, Netanyahu’s ‘witch hunt’ narrative takes cues from Trump
-
Yiddish די הגדה ווי אַ לעבעדיקער דענקמאָל פֿון אַשכּנזישער פּאָעזיעThe Haggadah as a living monument to Ashkenazi poetry
אַמאָל זענען די פּייטנים, מיסטישע דיכטער־וויזיאָנערן, געווען אויבן־אָן בײַ די פֿראַנצויזישע און דײַטשישע ייִדן.
-
Shop the Forward Store
100% of profits support our journalism
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 comply with the following:
- Credit the Forward
- Retain our pixel
- Preserve our canonical link in Google search
- Add a noindex tag 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.