Facebook campaign against Holocaust denial coming soon in German

The world’s largest Internet and the World Jewish Congress The world’s largest internet network and the World Jewish Congress (WJC) announced Thursday that their cooperation will be expanded to include other languages.

AboutHolocaust.org is jointly developed by the WJC and the United Nations Educational, Scientific, Cultural and Communication Organization (UNESCO). The site has been proposed to search in English about the Holocaust or its denial since the end of January. Twelve languages ​​will be added over the next few weeks – including Arabic, French, Polish, Russian, Spanish, Portuguese and Farsi.

Facebook has long tolerated Holocaust denial – which is illegal in Germany – in other countries when it comes to freedom of expression. It was only banned last October after discussions and criticism. At the time, founder and president Mark Zuckerberg justified the rethinking of increasing anti-Semitism.

Zuckerberg came under fire three years ago when he said in an interview that he still did not want to ban Holocaust deniers from the platform in principle. He himself was Jewish and found such statements extremely offensive, he told the tech blog Recode at the time. “But in the end, I don’t think our platform should remove that because I think there are things that different people get wrong about. I don’t think they are wrong on purpose.”

In an announcement Thursday, WJC President Ronald Lauder praised Facebook’s efforts to remove hate speech and support the dissemination of knowledge about the Holocaust. “I encourage other social media platforms to follow suit in using their technology to spread the truth.”

A page in the history of the Holocaust

Announcement at the World Jewish Congress