Comments on: Will Facebook follow Obama's lead on Holocaust denial?

In his speech at the Buchenwald concentration camp, President Obama declares that Holocaust denial is hateful. Might this influence Facebook to finally make a stand against Holocaust denial and other hate-based groups?

[DiscGo]

I believe the holocaust happened and it was a horrific moment in the history of mankind.

However, I think that the freedom of speech to publicly say whatever you like is paramount.

If a group of people want to gather and discuss talk about how the "Holocaust did not happen", or "Proof that there is no God", discuss "conspiracy theories", or whatever they should have the right to believe and say whatever they want.

Why there would be a call to arms for less rights is beyond me.

[tektaktyks]

i agree,why there is a problem with this..???

[The_JIDF]

Yet Facebook removes other types of content. If you are, in fact, such a free speech advocate, perhaps you should spend time protesting Facebook's decision to ban the KKK from their platform. I can show you hundreds of examples of content which has been removed.

Facebook is a private company, on private servers, with private rules. People can either abide by what is appropriate, or they can have their accounts and content removed by Facebook.

Just like you can't yell "BOMB" on a plane, you cannot espouse hatred on Facebook (well, you can if you hate Jews, but according to their TOS, you can't)

[kcotham]

I agree with you DiscGo. I personally think it's just plain stupid, with all the evidence that this horror did happen, that people still say it didn't happen. But I will defend their right to say what they like, even if it is asinine. When we start telling people what they can and can't say in a public forum, that's the beginning of the end of the American way of life, the beginning of the end of freedom.

On the other hand, FaceBook is a private enterprise and can make up any rule it likes, so long as its rules aren't illegal in and of themselves. So, let them do what they like.

"They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety." --Benjamin Franklin

[tacit]

People who argue in favor of "freedom of speech" rarely seem to understand what it is.

Anyone who wants to is free to speak on any subject they like. That is not what's being discussed here.

People are free to say whatever they want, but they are NOT free to use OTHER PEOPLE'S money, resources, equipment, networks, or computers to do it. I am free to speak my mind, but I am NOT free to walk into my local TV station and demand that they put me on the air. They own the station, they own the transmitters, they own the cameras; it's their choice what to put on.

Similarly, people are free to say whatever they want, but they are NOT free to insist that Facebook allow them to say it on Facebook servers using Facebook network resources.

If Facebook wants to say that you can not discuss turtles on their system, or you can't talk about baking pancakes, or you can't talk about Holocaust denial, that does not infringe freedom of speech. As long as Facebook owns those servers and that bandwidth, if you want to use their equipment you follow their rules. People who want to spout nonsense like Holocaust denial are free to do so on other networks, or set up Web sites of their own.

Folks, this is really, really basic. Telling you that you can't use my equipment to talk about what you want is not censorship. It does not violate freedom of speech. It only becomes a free speech issue if you are forbidden to talk about it at all, even using your own resources.

It's depressing how many otherwise intelligent people don't understand that.

[kcotham]

Tacit, I don't think anyone is saying that at all. I, for one, am not. FaceBook is free to make any policy they like. But to demand that Facebook ban these groups is unfairly biased. As long as they don't violate existing policies, I see no reason to silence them. They are spouting garbage and any reasonable, intelligent person will see that. If we went around demanding that stupid people be silenced, it'd be a much quieter world. For one, our politicians would be virtually mute!

[Seaspray0]

Well put, kcotham... provided we don't give stupid people megaphones, autodialers, or twitter accounts (too late on the twitter accounts)...

[paulej]

One cannot classify disbelief as hate. That's going too far. Heck, my son does not believe half of what I tell him, but it's not hate. To call those who reject history ignorant when the facts are right in their faces might be reasonable, but I certainly would not classify the behavior as hate.

[SeizeCTRL]

Now let's be honest, most of the people who deny the holocaust hate the Jews. Islamic extremists for example... well they hate EVERYONE, but they really really hate Israel and the Jews. Other groups like the KKK and Aryan Nation who deny it, oddly enough, do not like the Jews... I know it's hard to believe that racist groups such as those actually hate the Jews, but a lot of them do. Don't take my word for it... here ya go, direct from the Aryan Nation website

"It shall only be these individuals who will be willing - and capable - to change the world in a significant way... To redress the imbalance caused by the Jew and their hubristic sycophants and restore this earth to a state of cosmic harmony. "

So to reiterate, the majority who deny the holocaust are usually members of HATE GROUPS!

[jchanski21]

The group itself might be titled so that it is technically about a group of people who share belief regarding what they see as a historical inaccuracy... but go to some of those and read what the discussions are about. There are quite a few hate-mongers who use these groups for the sole purpose of doing such.

If we want to get down this far into the weeds, I'm sure facebook could create a division to scan "questionable" groups such as these and manually remove hate posts as they come up. But I think what everyone is saying is that it would be better to just remove the groups themselves completely, even if every single sentance of text in that group isn't hateful.

[AeroJonesy]

Hate is the new terror. The government will tell us it is everywhere and use it as a justification to suppress free (albeit extremely unsavory) speech.

[Seaspray0]

Expressing opinions is one thing. I will defend anyone's right to do that. Lying about the truth is another.

[adam-s]

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=976870941610001004

Until recently, I also believed that only Jew-haters had any sort of motive to want to revise the Holocaust. I had, like so many, been aware that there were revisionist accounts but hesitated both out of skepticism--I couldn't believe that the mainstream narratives could be so wrong--and reluctance to associate myself with something that is invariably ascribed to racists and bigots alone. Do racists and bigots reject the mainstream historical narrative of the holocaust? They do, but not simply because they want to, but for the same reason they tend to believe that the earth revolves around the sun--the evidence is compelling. Shall we therefore reject the heliocentric model of our solar system too?

My own awakening came after learning of the work of Jewish Canadian revisionist scholar David Cole, whose videotaped tour of Auschwitz was one of the most fascinating and eyeopening things I have ever watched. Learning subsequently that David Cole renounced his revisionist work as a result of death threats made against him by the Jewish Defense League (a terrorist group according to the FBI--they have plotted to bomb mosques and even a US congressman's office)I realized that the only reason for such actions by the JDL and by those governments that have imprisoned revisionist scholars for simply talking about the issue is that the traditional account of the holocaust rests on a precariously thin body of evidence that grows thinner every year as mainstream historians are themselves forced to revise things like the number of Jewish people killed and the existence of gas chambers at several camps where they were once claimed to exist but no longer.

I discovered that not even supporters of the traditional narrative claim any longer that the bodies of Jewish victims were used to make lampshades or soap as I was taught as a child. Why, I wondered, would these stories have to have been invented if in fact the Nazi's crimes were already so awful?

It must be made clear that the revisionist case does not state that the Nazis were good people or that Hitler was not a racist and cruel dictator. The issue is one of scale--were the crimes committed by the losers of WW2 any worse than those committed by the victors? Was the "final solution" to the "Jewish question" proposed by Hitler's Germany the extermination of the world's Jews or was it their expulsion from Europe? Were the deaths in the concentration camps which no one denies were harsh centers of forced labor really a result of homicidal gas chambers or the result of diseases like typhus, for which reason Zyklon B gas was used to kill the lice that spread the disease? What evidence is there in support of the traditional narrative? Have you ever looked for it?

The reason for the distortion and exaggerration of the extent of the Nazis' war crimes was to create a sacred myth that would place the suffering of Jewish people above that of all other victims of WW2 and thus lend support both externally and internally to the new European colonial outpost, Israel, which was formed at the expense of the lives of those who had previously inhabited the "promised land".

[sherbisness]

adam-s, I dont believe anything that you write, even though it is cleverly disguised propaganda, your intention is clear from your last paragraph, please dont try to claim to be someone that you are not.

[ibsteve2u]

lollll...wow. Goebbels would be proud of you.

[jimspice]

Nice cut-n-paste job from any of thirty places this mindless babble has been previously posted. http://www.google.com/search?q=%22I+discovered+that+not+even+supporters+of+the+traditional+narrative+claim+%22&hl=en&client=firefox-a&rls=com.google:en-US:official&hs=g6U&filter=0

[ViperKat]

To Adam-s: Ahhhhh, yes, a true believer. I was born in 1943 and went to school with a couple of survivors of that era, from Germany. These were not Jews, they were German citizens that were able to get out of Germany in the last several months of the war. The freely discuss the atrocities against the Jews and the use of the camps. Your revisionist theories are only that and they carry about as much weight as your other opinions.

One of my secretaries, in 1966, was from Stuttgart and lived her war years on a farm with her grandparents because the times in the larger cities were extremely dangerous. Unfortunately, some of the farm workers came from the camps and they expressed their fears about returning to the camps to her grandparents.

Germans were not all Nazis and a good many citizens only joined the Nazi party because it meant a job during a very tough, economic time. If you were to read your history of the depression years, in the United States, you might get a glint of how bad things can really be. Most people will do almost anything to have food on the table and a roof over their heads.

Your prorogation of this kind of dribble is disgusting and I would hope that my response is not the only one you will be getting. Suffice to say that regardless of what your rant, the evidence is clear and will not be changed due to your opiinion.

[The_JIDF]

You said that the Holocuast denial groups are small. However, according to our research, some are actually rather large. For example:

F**** Israel and their Holocaust Bulls****
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=51205976791
1,082 members

6,000,000 for the TRUTH about the Holocaust
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=41468950747
439 members

Holocaust is a myth
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=81989559933
380 members

**** Israel And Their Holocaust ********
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=41610504185
123 members

Additionally, there are many threads in many groups which are promoting hatred, genocide, and terrorism which are full of Holocaust denial. Most of those threads can be found in many anti-Israel groups which have 10's of thousands of members.

All that said, thank you for mentioning and linking to our United Against Holocaust Denial On Facebook" group.

[SeizeCTRL]

Wonder how Facebook would react if I started a Muslim Hate Group? Or ironically enough a WE HATE THE KKK group. Just something funny about hating a group of haters ;)

[tektaktyks]

its like this:u can criticize anyone u want:the president,america,muslims,christians, etc .,but don;t u dare to criticize jewish ppl.

[The_JIDF]

This article has nothing to do with criticism of various people.

It has to do with hatred.

Plenty of people dare to criticize Jews.

Meanwhile, Jews are usually on the front lines defending other people from hatred.

Many Jews themselves are behind these backwards stands at Facebook.

[ViperKat]

Go ahead, tektaktyks, if you live in the United States, go ahead and openly criticize BHO and find out what the Secret Service has to say about it. If you are not in the mainstream media, you will spend 72 hours in hold status.

One woman called Bill Clinton a "Son of a *****" and she was detained by the Secret Service (Police???) in Chicago. So you just go right ahead and take a vacation on the Administration.

[SeizeCTRL]

but when you criticize the muslims, one usually shows up at your door either with a truck bomb, a suicide belt or a big ass knife to cut your head off.

[launch_flix]

Thanks for a great piece. Facebook, get a clue from the President - "To this day, there are those who insist that the Holocaust never happened--a denial of fact and truth that is baseless and ignorant and hateful," and follow your own policy and remove all hate groups from your site.

[EricMS00]

Holocaust denial is free speech and should be protected. I do not agree with it, but I am more in favor Holocaust deniers than I am in favor of censorship.

[The_JIDF]

Facebook is a private company, on private servers, with private rule against hate speech.

[ellebeecee]

Please! Holocaust deniers a nuts, who cares if they want to flock together as long as they do not harm anyone. Facebook even if it is owned by a private company is a public space and like in any public space we will finds things we don't agree with, like or condone. Live and let live.

[kcotham]

I personally think it's just plain stupid, with all the evidence of this horror, that people still say it didn't happen. But I will defend their right to say what they like, even if it is asinine. When we start telling people what they can and can't say in a public forum, that's the beginning of the end of the American way of life, the beginning of the end of freedom. Dictating what people can and can't say, even if the attempt is well meaning, is counter to our beliefs as a country and our Bill of Rights.

On the other hand, FaceBook is a private enterprise and can make up any rule it likes, so long as its rules aren't illegal in and of themselves. So, let them do what they like.

"They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety." --Benjamin Franklin

[liquidmetalband]

FREEDOM OF SPEECH. Everyone should have it.

[The_JIDF]

Everyone should understand the concept does not apply @ private company, on private servers, with private rules.

[fondy]

How can denying an historical event be considered an act of hate?
If I'm not mistaken, censorship and intimidation were just a few of the things that made the Holocaust possible.
In short, if you don't like Facebook's policy stop using their service and tell them why.

[swenk22]

"Hateful" pretty divisive speech if you ask me... actually I'm just being sarcastic, I really think it's fine. But if Bush had said such instead of wondering about hurting facebook's feelings many would be indeed calling bush divisive...

[lkrupp]

The problem with these groups is the theory that if you repeat a lie often enough people will eventually begin to question the truth and believe the liars. A prime example of this is the continuing "debate" over whether the moon landings were faked. For years these idiots were dismissed as kooks and conspiracy theorists. Over time, however, their lies and deceits began to get some traction in later generations to whom the space race was simply something in a history book. It got so bad that NASA was forced into producing a documentary recently that unequivocally refutes each and very claim by the moon landing deniers. But it was too late. The idea, the seed that the moon landings didn't really happen had already taken root. It will always be there.

That is the goal of the holocaust deniers. Tell the lie often enough and it will eventually take root, just like the lies and whispers that claim...

1. Jews were warned to stay home from work on 9/11/2001.

2. The United States government carried out the demolition of the World Trader Center towers.

3. George Bush ordered the New Orleans levies blown up.

Denying historical fact is, indeed, an act of hate that has been used to attack various groups and prop up governments for millennia. To this day the government of Turkey denies that the Armenian genocide took place. The United States government tries to avoid any discussion of the atrocities perpetrated against the native peoples of North America during the expansionist years of the country. The list goes on. Every family, every country, every culture, every government has skeletons in the closet they don't want others to know about.

That's why these groups need to be censored and exposed for the haters they are.

[adam-s]

Actually, with regard to no. 2: Nearly seven hundred architectural and engineering professionals have signed a petition demanding a closer investigation into the WTC collapses. Nowhere near that many professionals have expressed, in writing, unequivocal support for the official explanation. Are you aware that a study documenting not just residual, but actual *unused* explosive material, passed scientific peer review in a respected journal?

http://www.bentham-open.org/pages/content.php?TOCPJ/2009/00000002/00000001/7TOCPJ.SGM

And that's just regarding the collapse of the buildings in New York.

Other people who disbelieve the official 9/11 story as accepted by the cOmission Report include:

Asst. secretary of the treasury under Reagan, Paul Craig Roberts. Former CIA analyst and presidential daily briefer Ray McGovern. And John Lear, son of Bill Lear (founder of the Learjet co.). Republican Arizona state senator Karen Johnson. And former congresswoman Cynthia McKinney. And former German defense minister Andreas von Bulow. And Japanese senator Yushika Fujita. And former Italian president Francesco Cossiga, who exposed part of Operation Gladio (if you're not familiar with Gladio, google it).

By the way, the biggest 9/11 group on facebook is a "never forget" group with 37,000 members, but there's another facebook group which is catching up with almost 28,000 members: "9/11 Truth Movement."

9/11 Truth Now!
PatriotsQuestion911.Com
PilotsFor911Truth.org
ae911truth.org

[pw1y]

Is displaying ignorance/stupidity a form of hate? Is the very existence of the state of Isreal a denial of the existence of Palestine? And vice versa. Is that ignorance a form of hate? Where does one draw the line?

[lobotomy77]

Denial of the holocaust has nothing to do with hatred or racism. I myself have a lot of jewish friends whith whom I spend a lot of time with.

However, I do beleive that the holocaust is an exagerated and totally distorted event!
I don't beleive 6 million jews died, i'm sorry this is just not logical and makes absolutely no sense!!

[The_JIDF]

One thing I notice is that every antisemite has a lot of close Jewish friends in order to rationalize their hatred. When I spoke to the Chief Privacy Officer @ Facebook about these issues, he seemed to rationalize this crap as well by saying that Jews work at the company. It doesn't fly. If you don't believe that 6 million Jews and 5 million non-Jews were murdered in the Holocaust, try doing some research. It's the most well-documented crime in human history.

[Seaspray0]

@lbotomy77. So basically you can't beleive in something you've never seen that happened in the past, right? So tell me this.. Do you have problems beleiving that two atomic bombs were detonated on civilian populations in Japan (Hiroshima and Nagasaki) at the end of world war 2 killing an estimated 200,000?... just two bombs killing an estimated 200,000? It just doesn't seem logical or make sense that only two bombs could do that, does it? But it happened. Now for the next question: Did you see it happen? Have you personally ever seen a nuclear explosion? If you can believe this without seeing it, why can't you beleive that the holocaust happened, especially when there is proof that it did happen?

[menajemh]

if u speak with a holocaust survivor, u will find out how many ppl have been lost. almost every holcaust survivor lost his family, friends, etc. if u go to israel to yad vashem, the holocaust museum there, u will see all the towns and cities where jewish ppl lived, all of their names where known and how many disappeared in that war by the nazi. u can;t deny a holocaust cause it sounds illogic that something like that ever happened, first u have to investigate to say your opinion, u have to base yourself in something. the holocaust happened, and u can't deny it, unfortunately. do you want to see material about it? there's plenty. the number 6.000.000 is an aprox. number cause the registered names of ppl disappeared is just a little less, but we know there;s a lot more ppl never registered that also disappeared, like ppl from farms, that didn't have any kind of documentation.
one more thing, according to the things i see every day, how ppl live and how they nations treat each other, makes a lot of sense and is very logic to understand that there was an holocaust.

[agreddon]

I would never want to prevent somebody from making a perfect ass of him- or herself. I put these people in the same class as the Flat Earth Society.

[johnisfun]

Yay, a clearly-written article from Chris.

To the point: free speech should triumph here.. I can understand why Facebook might ban violent groups from their servers, but I hope they don't cave in to politically correct facism and ban holocaust deniers, or any other conspiracy theorists, ridiculous as they are.

[heavyhedonist]

What I got from this article was a challenge, a question really, and a fairly ridiculous one at that-- do I think that when the president of my country declares something to be hate speech, it is? And my answer is no, there are channels to go through, and frankly I hope this won't make it through them. If there's a wasp in the room, I like to be able to see it, and see where it's going.