Twitter to join Facebook in banning Holocaust-denial content, report says
A change in Twitter's hateful-conduct policy is reportedly coming.
- I've been covering technology and mobile for 12 years, first as a telecommunications reporter and assistant editor at ZDNet in Australia, then as CNET's West Coast head of breaking news, and now in the Thought Leadership team.
Twitter will start removing Holocaust-denial content from its social media platform under its hateful-conduct policy, a report Wednesday said. The move comes two days after Facebook updated its hate-speech policy to prohibit "content that denies or distorts the Holocaust."
A spokesperson confirmed to Bloomberg that Twitter will remove content that "attempts to deny or diminish" violent events such as the Holocaust.
"We strongly condemn anti-semitism, and hateful conduct has absolutely no place on our service," the Twitter spokesperson told Bloomberg. "We also have a robust 'glorification of violence' policy in place and take action against content that glorifies or praises historical acts of violence and genocide, including the Holocaust."
Twitter didn't immediately respond to a request for comment.
As well as removing posts that deny the Holocaust -- the World War II genocide of Europe's Jewish population by Nazi Germany and its collaborators -- Facebook will later this year start directing people who search for Holocaust-denial terms to credible sources of information.
"Our decision is supported by the well-documented rise in anti-Semitism globally and the alarming level of ignorance about the Holocaust, especially among young people," Monika Bickert, Facebook vice president of content policy, said in a release Monday. In 2018, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg said Holocaust-denial content shouldn't be removed from the social media platform, because he didn't think those posting it were "intentionally getting it wrong."
Approximately 6 million Jewish people were murdered between 1941 and 1945 in Europe during the Second World War, according to the US Holocaust Memorial Museum.