12 October 2020
Yad Vashem welcomes today's announcement from Facebook to update their hate speech policy to prohibit all forms of Holocaust denial and distortion on its platform.
Yad Vashem has long stated that Holocaust denial and distortion are forms of antisemitism and should be classified as hate speech.
In a recent letter to Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, Yad Vashem Chairman Avner Shalev indicated that antisemitism is not simply identifiable by keywords, phrases or algorithms but requires human understanding and sensitivities in recognizing and banning such posts. Furthermore, Shalev wrote:
"Education is a vital way of fighting Holocaust distortion and antisemitism."
Accordingly, Yad Vashem supports Facebook's initiative of directing its users to credible and fact-based content sources, such as Yad Vashem's comprehensive website in eight languages, as a significant step in the right direction.
Director of Yad Vashem Communications Division Iris Rosenberg states:
"We encourage Facebook to do its utmost and implement these new policies, which we hope, in time, will help fight against all forms of antisemitism, hatred and bigotry, which plague us both on and off line."
