back to article Mark Zuckerberg, 36, decides that having people on his website deny the deaths of six million Jews is a bad thing

Facebook will block posts that deny the Holocaust after CEO Mark Zuckerberg, aged 36, announced on Monday that his “thinking has evolved.” “Today we are updating our hate speech policy to prohibit any content that denies or distorts the Holocaust,” the social media giant said in a note today. “Following a year of consultation …

  1. just_some_dude

    Cost Benefit

    Sounds like the revenues recieved from targeting ads to the holocaust denier demographic no longer justifies the effort involved with constantly defending the act of providing a platform for said demographic. So brave.

  2. TaabuTheCat

    Morals and values?

    I don't know whether to cry or cry. To see people struggle and twist themselves into pretzels over basic right and wrong, and agonize over the things that make us decent human beings is incredibly depressing. Speaks volumes about where we are as a nation.

    1. jake Silver badge

      Re: Morals and values?

      "Speaks volumes about where we are as a nation."

      Zhmuck and his brown-nosing sycophants, and the extreme hate groups taking advantage of their money-grubbing advertising monstrosity, do not now, nor will they ever, represent any nation on Earth. They are a corporation, and an awful one. The best way to deal with them is to refuse to use their "services"[0] and tell all your friends and family why you are no longer using Facebook.

      [0] That reminds me, I need to move the ram over to the other group of ewes ...

      1. Dave314159ggggdffsdds Silver badge

        Re: Morals and values?

        Antisemitic attacks on Zuckerberg in this context... Self awareness isn't your strongpoint, is it?

        1. sabroni Silver badge
          Happy

          Re: Self awareness isn't your strongpoint, is it?

          "I'm aware that I'm always right!"

    2. ShadowDragon8685

      Re: Morals and values?

      Frankly, I'm at the point where I'd support a constitutional amendment amending the almighty 1st to require it to be illegal to deny the Holocaust and any other genocide or similar crime against humanity, and not only provision mandatory prison time for persons found guilty of a third offense thereof, but life imprisonment without parole for a fourth offense, and to treat any platform which facilitates the spreading of such views similarly.

      [e] Yes, obviously a Yank here.

      1. jake Silver badge

        Re: Morals and values?

        No. Too far over the slippery slope.

      2. Cederic Silver badge

        Re: Morals and values?

        But then you'd have to ban denial of the US genocide of South-East Asia, leaving an entire subcontinent bereft of human life.

        I think it's reasonable to allow people to question the commonly accepted truths. I also think it's important to educate them. Forcing them to share their misunderstandings and/or lies in private removes that ability to address those.

        1. disgruntled yank

          Re: Morals and values?

          Subcontinent? Are you referring to Vietnam, which has a whole bunch of human life and does a great deal of business with the USA?

          But mind you, I am grateful for moral instruction on these matters from Britons generally.

          1. Cederic Silver badge

            Re: Morals and values?

            No, I'm referring to India, Pakistan and Sri Lanka.

            Forget morals, you need instruction in understanding the use of ridicule to make serious points.

      3. 96percentchimp

        Re: Morals and values?

        @ShadowDragon8685 Would you include the USA's genocide of Native Americans within this amendment?

        Brit here, so hands obviously filthy with our own moral failures (which continue today under the baleful gaze of Priti Patel).

        1. ShadowDragon8685

          Re: Morals and values?

          Yes. What 18th-, 19th- and early-20th-century Americans did to the Natives was beyond criminal, it was genocide; intentional extinction of a whole lot of peoples and their cultures, via every mechanism imaginable from biological warfare to straight-up murdercidal violence to forcible relocation to land that cannot sustain them.

          Anyone who denies that it was those things is either a thundering moron, or an apologist.

          1. jake Silver badge

            Re: Morals and values?

            We learned it from the best.

            Ever hear about so-called "smallpox blankets"? They came about during the siege of Fort Pitt, during Pontiac's War in 1763. The United States didn't exist yet. It was English Field Marshal Jeffery Amherst, 1st Baron Amherst, who ordered the germ warfare. He wrote in a footnote of a letter to Colonel Henry Bouquet on July 16th, 1663 P.S. You will Do well to try to Innoculate the Indians by means of Blanketts, as well as to try Every other method that can serve to Extirpate this Execreble Race.

            In other words, he was knowingly attempting genocide under the authority of the Crown. Nice group of folks, you Brits. Have you hugged your Golly today?

      4. Cynic_999

        Re: Morals and values?

        How about if someone were to state that Israel is committing genocide against Palestinians? Such a law would mean that the statement could never be challenged or qualified.

        1. Hollerithevo

          Re: Morals and values?

          That's confusing Jewish people everywhere in the world with the State of Israel.

      5. A.P. Veening Silver badge

        Re: Morals and values?

        Frankly, I'm at the point where I'd support a constitutional amendment amending the almighty 1st to require it to be illegal to deny the Holocaust and any other genocide or similar crime against humanity, and not only provision mandatory prison time for persons found guilty of a third offense thereof, but life imprisonment without parole for a fourth offense, and to treat any platform which facilitates the spreading of such views similarly.

        How about the Armenian genocide? Denying it will get you in trouble already with various governments, acknowledging it will definitely get you in trouble with the Turkish government.

  3. Magani
    Facepalm

    Thinks...

    It's taken an age for him to hit himself with a (very small) clue stick, hasn't it?

    It must be agonising to worry about choosing between money and morals.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Thinks...

      Is this, that?

      If too few people were NOT denying the holocaust, he'd go on about how FB needs to remain more open minded. Sorry, actually it appears he kind of did that a couple years ago, so... just... follow... the... money...

    2. Dave314159ggggdffsdds Silver badge

      Re: Thinks...

      This isn't between money and morals, except to a raving antisemite who dogwhistles old antisemitic tropes. It's a moral dilemma.

      Personally, I think this is completely wrong. Facebook now has the power to decide which ideas are morally wrong. That's a lot worse than not moderating racist nutjobs out of existence.

      If something isn't criminal - that is, hate speech, incitement, etc - then it isn't Facebook's job to police it.

      But to you it's just about portraying Zuckerberg as something out of Adolphian propaganda.

      1. jake Silver badge

        Re: Thinks...

        "Facebook now has the power to decide which ideas are morally wrong."

        Yours, maybe. I'll stick to my own variation on the theme, TYVM.

        1. Dave314159ggggdffsdds Silver badge

          Re: Thinks...

          Yours, mine, any the general population doesn't like. If Facebook was around a few decades ago, what stance would they have to take on things like discrimination on grounds of skin colour or sexual preference?

          We shouldn't set bad precedents to target Nazis, even though we think they're despicable; that's in fact why we shouldn't, too, because we're likely to do things that taken in a bigger context are not good when we target bad people.

      2. Martin-73 Silver badge

        Re: Thinks...

        However, hate speech IS illegal. Hint, facebook operates in multiple countries. And clearly he was supporting hate speech prior to this announcement.

      3. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Thinks...

        Facebook are a company. If they chose to allow only posts about Pikachu they could do that. If The Register chose to permanently ban posts from tfb they could do that.

  4. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    I mean, it's technically banned on Twitter already.

    Work was slow today. I spent a while reporting Nazis on Twitter today. They're not doing a very good job.

    1. P. Lee

      I notice El Reg is framing this as "Zuckerberg's website."

      The key question is: Is Zuckerberg publishing content or providing a platform for others to publish on?

      Section 230 wants to know. It looks like most of big tech is prepping to become publishers.

      The internet is a big place. The chance of any given opinion offending someone or being "hateful" is pretty much one. The funny thing about it is that the purity circle of approved viewpoints shrinks rapidly until it becomes a noose. Amazon censors anti-vax books and t-shirts which say "stand back and stand by." At what point do you decide that you don't want your ideas quashed? How quickly do you fall into a minority opinion and get cancelled?

      The point about free speech is that it protects minorities. That's not just demographic minorities, but also new ideas which haven't yet gained traction and been refined through considered opposition.

      Sacrificing that for the sake of "winning" against a few unpleasant people online, for whom you're too lazy to hit "mute" is a decision which will be regretted both by the users who thought they would somehow be immune to being cancelled, and Zuckerberg, who will preside over a boring, ever-shrinking website publishing the same orthodoxy forever, unable to ever consider anything new.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        The media relies on free speech, but also wants to attack for clicks big companies who try and take a stand on free speech.

        Next up, endless additions to the list of what is hate.

        Finally, the media remember what journalism is and start writing about how maybe free speech is worth considering.

      2. Palpy
        Devil

        "...Zuckerberg will preside --

        -- over a boring, ever-shrinking website"

        Oh, stop it, you're getting me all optimistic.

  5. PhilipN Silver badge

    One year consultation?

    Gagging on the hypocrisy.

    Now here is a REALLY crazy idea - when mentioning anybody avoid any adjectives alluding to the skin colour.

    I called out The Times on this a year ago when they reported on joint winners of the Booker Prize. One was referred to as black and British. The other was referred to as Canadian (but not "white Canadian"). Utterly ******g disgusting.

    1. Just Enough
      WTF?

      Re: One year consultation?

      Bernardine Evaristo is the first black woman and first black Briton to win the Booker prize. The book she won it for is mostly about the lives of black women. She founded the Brunel University African Poetry Prize and the Theatre of Black Women. She organised the Afro Style School for poets of colour. Being black and British seems pretty fundamental to her identity and her work.

      Would you rather The Times had ignored all this?

      1. PhilipN Silver badge

        Re: One year consultation?

        Wrong. It is fundamental to YOUR categorisation of her identity. That is what is disgusting.

        1. Just Enough

          Re: One year consultation?

          So when she co-founded the Theatre of Black Women, she wasn't thinking of herself as a Black Woman? In 2014, when she was the keynote speaker at the Black British Womens’ Writing Conference, it was not because she was a Black British Woman Writer? When she was the keynote speaker at the Black Arts in Britain Conference in 2010, it wasn't as a representative of Black Arts in Britain?

          When she lists all these things on her own website, it's not because she wants to be identified with any of this?

          What's disgusting is you thinking you get to decide what she is, on her behalf, erasing what is clearly of significant importance to her.

          1. Hollerithevo

            Re: One year consultation?

            I actually know Ms Evaristo. I can't speak for her, but I am sure she is more than aware of the tension between being, and wanting to be named and seen as, an activist Black woman, and also having her colour mentioned where, sometimes, it isn't relevant. But generally, as the commentards above have noted, she is very much wanting to bring Black women into the public eye.

            The main thing is not to be indignant about someone's apparent treatment when you have no authority to be.

    2. Martin
      FAIL

      Re: One year consultation?

      If somebody mentions Black Lives Matter, are you one of these people who trot out "All lives matter"?

      1. Cynic_999

        Re: One year consultation?

        Don't you believe that they do?

        1. Martin

          Re: One year consultation?

          ....No, Martin, he's just trying to wind you up. Ignore him....

        2. Hollerithevo

          Re: One year consultation?

          As soon as someone says this, you know they don't get that BLM is all about.

          1. Justin Case

            Re: One year consultation?

            Marxism and getting rid of then police?

            1. J27

              Re: One year consultation?

              Everyone knows BLM are secret bronies obsessed with genetically engineered purple flying unicorns.

              Makes as much sense as your comment.

          2. jake Silver badge

            Re: One year consultation?

            Of course I get it. I just think that as a catch-phrase it is an obvious ploy to inflame the tensions between races ... which is not exactly the stated purpose of the movement. Shooting yourself in the foot right from the git-go is usually frowned upon as a strategy.

      2. jake Silver badge

        Re: One year consultation?

        "are you one of these people who trot out "All lives matter"?"

        I don't trot it out, I state it matter of factly. Because I'm not racist.

        Only a simpleton believes that black lives aren't included in the set of all lives ... and only a muck-stirrer trying to inflame the simpletons would even attempt to suggest that I mean it in any other way.

        1. Martin
          WTF?

          Re: One year consultation?

          Oh dear. So I'm a muck stirrer or a simpleton now?

          You know perfectly well that the point about all of this is that it IS a different experience being black in a world which is biassed against it. Hence Black Lives Matter does not mean that white lives do not matter - it's an attempt to point out inequality to people who actually don't think that black lives are as important as white ones.

          Hence, it is perfectly reasonable to mention that Evaristo is black, and also the first black woman to win the Booker, and completely unnecessary to mention that Atwood is white, as that's the default assumption. Particularly as Evaristo's book is an examination of what it's like to be black (and gay and trans) in a white world.

          And to say that it's "****ing disgusting" when Evaristo's colour is mentioned and Atwood's is not is just being ridiculous.

          You know all this, of course. You're just being provocative. And I'm falling for it. Sigh.

          1. jake Silver badge

            Re: One year consultation?

            "So I'm a muck stirrer or a simpleton now?"

            If you try to call me a racist because I truly believe that "All Lives Matter" trumps "Black Lives Matter", then yes. That is exactly what you are.

            I have personally seen people proudly holding BLM signs in mass protests try to convince other people (on television camera, no less) that white lives do NOT matter, because black lives don't matter ... This is not a random event, it happens multiple times every time there is a largish protest. I've heard the same exact thing from sports stars, musicians, and other so-called 'heros". Again, shooting one's self in the foot is contraindicated when trying to get one's point across.

            "Evaristo"

            I had never even heard of this person until this thread. I still only have a vague idea who she is, and frankly not much interest in finding out more. Life's short, and there are only so many hours in a day.

  6. Blackjack Silver badge

    So it only took this long?

    Amazing, maybe in a decade more they will deal with anti-vaccine guys, flat earth atheists, racists in general, people who denied the Armenian Genocide ever happened and so on.

    1. JetSetJim

      Re: So it only took this long?

      why "flat earth atheists" and not just "flat earthers"? I'll bet there's a ready supply of "flat earth Christians" amongst others.

      1. werdsmith Silver badge

        Re: So it only took this long?

        Christians and flat earth ears are equally deluded.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: Christians and flat earth ears are equally deluded.

          OY! our Delusion is MUCH older than their "delusion"!

          1. jake Silver badge

            Re: Christians and flat earth ears are equally deluded.

            Sailors knew the Earth was round long before xtians existed ... and the Greeks proved it mathematically, also before that particular cult existed.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: So it only took this long?

      "flat earth atheists" ?

      Most atheists I've watched/read/listened to, tend to be rational thinkers who follow scientific principles, so are highly unlikely to think the Earth is flat!

      Most flat earthers, at least in the West, seem to be Christians!

    3. naive

      Re: So it only took this long?

      And in a decade and a day from now they will start banning Climate change deniers, gun owners, car owners, people who watch Fox News, Trump lovers, white people, christian people and others who dare to challenge the all knowing left.

      That is when Biden gets his shot to destroy America after aiding Obama for 8 years trying to achieve this.

      1. MGJ

        Re: So it only took this long?

        And that would be bad how?

        1. JetSetJim
          Paris Hilton

          Re: So it only took this long?

          username = "naive" says something?

          1. phuzz Silver badge
            IT Angle

            Re: So it only took this long?

            Maybe they're just slightly bad at spelling (I can sympathise, I'm dyslexic), and they just really want their username to represent their deep love for the central passage in a church?

            1. Hollerithevo

              Re: So it only took this long?

              Or a tragic mis-spelling for 'I am totally under attack and a victim here and the great society I want, which happens to require the subjugation of all non-white and non-Christian people, is also under attack and we all all going to hell in a handbasket, as happened under Obama, Clinton, and FDR"

        2. Jimmy2Cows Silver badge

          Re: And that would be bad how?

          Slippery slope toward (increasingly) rapant authoritarianism, that's how, and there's already more than enough of that going around as it is. Let's not add to it.

          Banning posts from people who disagree with you about whatever pet peeve you have isn't the way to change opinions. If you have a valid argument, make it, and expect to defend it. Not everyone will agree with you. Not everyone has to.

          1. Danny 2

            Re: And that would be bad how?

            @JimmyTwoCows

            I strongly disagree.

            I had an apprentice who was being shunned by the other apprentices for expressing fascist opinions. I took an afternoon to discuss and debate why with him, and changed his opinions. He'd been leafleted by BNP recruiters outside a football match and was daft and uneducated enough to fall for their lies.

            I don't think he should have been no-platformed, he just required rational conversation. However I do think the BNP recruiters needed to be no-platformed, and I went with friends to the next match to make sure they ceased their vile activities.

            https://xkcd.com/1357/

            1. Sanguma

              Re: And that would be bad how?

              After an accident about 12 years ago, the local Accident Compensation outfit sent a guy around to do my cleaning for me. We got on okay, then suddenly one day he comes out with stuff about how the Jews hadn't helped the Germans during the Depression, etc, so maybe ... and I said, that's fine for the bankers, but it shouldn't apply to the shoemakers, and he was gobsmacked. The idea that there could be Jews poorer than him, or just as hard-working, just hadn't occurred to him. He didn't say much after that, and he left soon after.

              The problem I've found is that a lot of these characters just are not aware of the other person at all. Let alone that they are people just the same as them.

              I'm wondering, though - the Jewish Voice for Peace, a US outfit trying to bring an end to the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians, has been complaining bitterly about Palestinian voices being systematically throttled by Facebook. I'll believe he's had a change of heart and that other people actually matter to Zuckerberg when he starts changing that.

              1. Danny 2

                Re: And that would be bad how?

                It's just a truism though. I consider The Guardian as right-wing, militaristic, dishonest and authoritarian. They banned me eventually, even though they'd called me an ingenious young man (1/3, I am a man).

                The Guardian wrote a glowing, extensive review of a friend with one mistake I suggested he correct. He couldn't, he'd been banned months before.

                It's their ball and when they walk off in the huff with it because you are beating them then your only option is to have another ball.

      2. CrazyOldCatMan Silver badge

        Re: So it only took this long?

        That is when Biden gets his shot to destroy America

        He's too late - Trump has already destroyed most of what made America 'great'.

        1. Hollerithevo

          Re: So it only took this long?

          With "The Swamp" in more positions of power than ever before (check out the head of many Fed departments -- all directly from lobbyist orgs), no Wall built, the rural economy in tatters, with the financial market jittery, with the USA less safe, having walked away from treaties, with North Korea enabled and having given up nothing (to the point where it gave a spurning, mocking reply to Trump's "let's do a deal"), with his family and cronies corrupting the Administration to fill their pockets, with no new healthcare package, no resurgence of coal...just what greatness did Trump bring?

          1. jake Silver badge

            Re: So it only took this long?

            And Mexico won't pay for the wall that isn't being built. Don't forget that. (Although a bunch of idiots in the private sector chose to pay into Bannon's retirement fund after being dupped into thinking that they were going to help fund the wall that they were certain Mexico was paying for ... but that's another story.)

            He hasn't "locked her up", either. In fact, he has done absolutely nothing that he promised his faithful that he would do. And yet still the fucking morons will back the idiot to the hilt.

            It would be hysterically funny, if it weren't so sad ... and dangerous.

        2. jake Silver badge

          Re: So it only took this long?

          Trump has destroyed nothing about what makes America great. He doesn't have that power. Stop trying to give it to him.

          1. This post has been deleted by its author

            1. codejunky Silver badge

              Re: So it only took this long?

              @Blackjack

              "People, he has destroyed people."

              Do people really believe this or is it just something easy to say?

  7. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    One awful conspiracy theory down

    A new one to commence in November:

    How the [insert crazy shit here] lost Trump the election...

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: One awful conspiracy theory down

      It'll be Stole the election, lost would imply they did it fairly...

      1. CrazyOldCatMan Silver badge

        Re: One awful conspiracy theory down

        It'll be Stole the election

        AKA "stabbed in the back".

        Look for the 2nd US revolution to start in a beer hall somewhere.

        1. jake Silver badge

          Re: One awful conspiracy theory down

          We don't need a revolution. We have elections. Trump won't be going out with a bang, he'll be going out with a whimper, tail between his legs. as he fucks off back to Florida.

  8. Claverhouse Silver badge
    Meh

    Meh

    They'll just go somewhere else.

    .

    I find massive amounts of things offensive, including republicanism, libertarianism, fascism, hunting, nationalism, and Cubism. That's no reason to ban my hates; nor why the expression of --- only the implementation of --- any beliefs, should be denied a voice.

    Oddly, the more Liberal the moralist, the more he or she wants to shut down opposing voices by law.

    1. JetSetJim

      Re: Meh

      I believe Parler is the one where all the nutjobs go

    2. Potemkine! Silver badge

      Re: Meh

      That's no reason to ban my hates; nor why the expression of --- only the implementation of --- any beliefs, should be denied a voice

      Of course it is, as your expression of calling for somebody to be killed is not allowed. You can't say publicly whatever you want without facing consequences. Would you accept for instance Daesh propaganda openly published on Facebook?

      That as nothing to do with opinions, but with well documented and proven facts. We are not talking about science, we are talking about people being killed.

      1. Jimmy2Cows Silver badge

        Re: we are talking about people being killed

        Hard to talk about when you ban one side of an argument from the discussion, regardless of how provably deluded that side might be.

        Such people don't go away and change their minds just because they get banned. In fact it just reinforces their viewpoint - See how they ban us from saying what they don't want to hear? That shows they have something to hide!

        Forcing such people to exist in private echo chambers only further exagerates their delusion. Better for it to be in the open where it can be challenged. Even if you personally find it disturbing, distressing, repugnant or outright lunacy.

        1. jelabarre59

          Re: we are talking about people being killed

          I am all in favor of allowing crackpots to spout off their ideas in public, it makes them easier to spot and subsequently avoid.

          As the saying goes, "Better to be silent and thought a fool, than to speak and remove all doubt".

  9. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Does this also mean...

    that Zuck will stop hiring PR firms to accuse Facebook's detractors of being affiliated with George Soros?

    1. JetSetJim
      Coat

      Re: Does this also mean...

      nah - Soros has told them to stop taking the contracts, as they're obviously in his pocket

    2. VulcanV5

      Re: Does this also mean...

      Zuckerberg will rid now himself of that international embodiment of honesty and integrity, Britain's former Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg? After all,it's likely that Clegg played a key role in getting the moronic Mark to change what passes for a mind about the Holocaust. I'm sure Clegg will modestly confirm that in due course.

  10. aki009

    Good thing or slippery slope??

    I'm wondering why does Z choose to ban certain rightfully objectionable speech instead of just creating an opt-in process for them? Banning it will be a slippery slope, and it'd be far better to use an opt-in option for people who really want to talk about their sick sh*t that's otherwise legal.

  11. Potemkine! Silver badge

    Will he do the same for those denying the Porajmos, the Holodomor or the Armenian genocide?

    Those propagating the idea these events did not exist are today's accomplices of yesterday's and tomorow's murderers.

  12. don't you hate it when you lose your account

    Evolved

    So how close is he to achieving slime now?

  13. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Above all...

    ... we must never forget the 160 million people of all faiths and none who died and many more whose lives were so tragically changed.

  14. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    we recently banned anti-Semitic stereotypes about the collective power of Jews that often

    this reads like a joke. I'm already deeply offended, and I'm not even a Jew! :)

  15. I ain't Spartacus Gold badge

    I met one the other day

    Met a chap I'd not seen in decades. And to be honest barely remembered. Life had clearly not been kind to him over that time - and I don't know if that's why he'd retreated into conspiracy nutjobbery. Or if maybe the conspiracy theories were a symptom of other problems that were part of the reason his life hadn't gone so well. It wasn't a comfortable conversation anyway. And he had a whole list of people whose fault everything was - but then maybe that's a more comfortable place to view the world from - if things haven't gone well for you?

    Anyway I met a version of holocaust denial I'd not come across before. Presumably because even some conspiracy nuts have "standards", and denying one of the worst crimes in history does tend to make you look bad. So it turns out there is a massive conspiracy, either by or in favour of the Jews, to big up the holocaust. To give them special victim status of something. Yes there were death camps, and yes the Nazis did kill some Jews. But the numbers have been inflated, "and it was only a couple of million". So apparently that's fine...

    I guess here, everone's a winner? Because normal people can perhaps still be satisified that you aren't a complete heartless idiot. But you are still able to feel that you're one of the cognoscenti - knowing the deeper truths that mere sheeple are too blinded by our global overlords to discover. Personally I'm struggling with the use of the words "only" and "couple" when talking about millions. But then as Stalin supposedly said, "one death is a tragedy but a million is merely a statistic." And I guess if you think the jews* are part of the global conspiracy then maybe "only" a couple of million of them dying isn't all that bad?

    It's an outlook I struggle to comprehend.

    * Should "The Jews" be captitalised/italicised, and possibly in bold here and maybe followed by [TM]? Scare quotes a further option...

    1. Dave314159ggggdffsdds Silver badge

      Re: I met one the other day

      If you're talking about Jewish people, then that's a good way to refer to them. If you're talking about the nutty conspiratorial myths, I find 'the jooz' apt.

      One of the defining features of Holocaust denial, ironically, is chutzpah. Sometimes it's hard not to laugh - dreadful as it undoubtedly is, 'swimming pools at Auschwitz' is breathtakingly outrageous.

      I'm pleased to see I'm not such a terrible person, the SPLC thinks the same about that one: https://www.splcenter.org/fighting-hate/intelligence-report/2010/lying-about-auschwitz

      1. I ain't Spartacus Gold badge

        Re: I met one the other day

        It's one of the great things about being a conspiracy nut. You never have to be wrong, because even good evidence of statistics or testimonies and photographs can simply be dismissed as fakes created by the conspiracy. So you need never lose an argument - you just bring up the next level of the conspiracy.

        It wouldn't surprise me if the stuff about swimming pools and "friendly sports competition between jews and SS guards" was originally created by the Nazis at the time. I seem to remember they promoted Theresienstadt as something like a model community - rather than what it actually was, which was a place to hold people until they could be sent off to the death camps.

        Nowadays the Chinese government talks about it's "career training" camps in Xinjiang. Quite why Uyghur people can't do these lessons at home, rather than behind barbed wire, isn't made clear... Presumably nobody's supposed to actually believe this shit, it's just enough of an excuse for offficials to not have to admit that they're representatives of a basically fascist government (which doesn't seem to be an unfair description of what the Chinese Communist Party has morphed into).

        1. Eclectic Man Silver badge

          Re: I met one the other day

          @ I ain't Spartacus "Presumably nobody's supposed to actually believe this shit, ..."

          The whole point of blatantly telling such enormous lies is demonstrate your unassailable power. Few Russians actually believe the denials from the Kremlin about not poisoning Mr Navalny with Novichok, but to make such an obvious and outrageous attempt to kill an opponent without any shame sends a powerful message to the others - "keep quiet or you are next".

          "... it's just enough of an excuse for offficials to not have to admit that they're representatives of a basically fascist government (which doesn't seem to be an unfair description of what the Chinese Communist Party has morphed into)."

          What do you mean "morphed into"? Communism has always been a totalitarian regime, from Marx, Engels, Lenin Stalin, Mao and the Kims.

          (Expecting the standard down vote for any post criticising the PRC or the Chinese Communist Party on this site. O, hang on, I believe that criticising the PRC ro the flag may actually be illegal in Chinese law, wherever it is done, even outside China.)

          1. I ain't Spartacus Gold badge

            Re: I met one the other day

            Eclectic Man,

            What do you mean "morphed into"? Communism has always been a totalitarian regime

            I'd agree, but the Chinese Communist Party were communist for a long time. Having started to liberalise the economy since the 80s to some extent they were undergoing a period of change. With a system in place of regular leadership changes, so they were some kind of oligarchy, rather than a dictatorship. Admittedly this wasn't really to protect the people, but to stop some single person taking charge and starting up all the purges of other Party leaders again, that Mao used to enjoy indulging in so much. However now they've let Xi Xinping take over as something close to leader for life, they've got the hyper-nationalism and corporatism and believe that everybody/everything should be subservient to the needs of the state. So I'd say they now meet the definition, in a way they didn't say 10-15 years ago.

            1. CrazyOldCatMan Silver badge

              Re: I met one the other day

              Communism has always been a totalitarian regime

              Depends on your definition - the 1st Century Christians practiced a form of voluntary communalism which Acts describes as "they gave as they could and were given as was needed".

              So that's pure communism. Communism in the last century and this is somewhat different in that it relies on the destruction and suppression of the owning class by the working class. The trouble is, once the owning class is destroyed, the bits of the working class that did the destruction (or the leaders of said subclass) become the new owning class and tighten their grip on power by controlling said owned resources while maintaining the forms and rhetoric of the working class. Which isn't communism, it's communal facism.

        2. Dave314159ggggdffsdds Silver badge

          Re: I met one the other day

          Theresienstadt was particularly odd. It was used for display because it was very much more lenient than a death camp, but still only as a background to a Potemkin village set piece for observers.

          The reason it existed at all is rather different. Adolph's big thing was helping the veterans of the Great War. There were a substantial number of Jewish veterans and heroes, who couldn't be shoved straight into cattle trucks. They went to T'stadt, at least at first. There was still a starvation diet and High death toll.

          I'm not sure the Uighar are facing quite the same thing. China appears to be trying to obliterate the culture rather than the people. Obviously that's utterly reprehensible, but it isn't as horrific as killing them all would be.

          1. CrazyOldCatMan Silver badge

            Re: I met one the other day

            China appears to be trying to obliterate the culture

            They are doing much as the UK[1] did with parts of Ireland and the Highlands of Scotland in the 17th-19th century - forbidding expression of culture and forcing an overlay of their culture in its place. The problem is, now there isn't somewhere to do the Dance Called America for the refugees to go.

            [1] Yes - the spawn of the UK (the US, Canada and Australia) did a similar thing and are still doing to a greater or lesser extent.

    2. phuzz Silver badge

      Re: I met one the other day

      I mean, there's an argument to be made that sometimes people forget, that in addition to the millions of Jewish people, the Nazis also tried to exterminate millions of Russians, Poles, Roma, handicapped people etc. But pretending that ~6M Jews weren't killed is not that.

      1. I ain't Spartacus Gold badge

        Re: I met one the other day

        Your post prompted me to look it up, as my memory was that the total figure was something like 12 million - but that's many years ago and history changes a lot as new facts are discovered. Or old ones revised.

        Looks like one total is about 17.3m. Although that makes me wonder if modern definitions are getting a bit loose. As it includes 5.7m Soviet civilians - which is an awful lot and I suspect that's including deaths by hunger in the areas around the fighting? Although admittedly quite a lot of that was deliberate. It's way more than the Todt organisation used in slave labour - and many of those were Soviet prisoners of war - of which 3m were also killed.

        I knew about the Jehova's Witnesses, German opposition, people with disabilities and the Roma - something above half a million of whom were killed.

        I'd known the occupation of Yugoslavia was particularly brutal, but hadn't realised the sheer numbers of Serb civilians murdered is over 300,000.

        But even if you don't count Russian and Polish civilians not killed in camps - many of whose deaths were in massacres and many others by deliberate starvation, you're still left with 6m Jews, at least 200,000 Poles, 3m Russian prisoners of war, 500,000 Roma and disabled, plus others.

        My source: link

        1. Dave314159ggggdffsdds Silver badge

          Re: I met one the other day

          The 6m figure was deliberately picked as the lowest possible estimate, precisely to forestall arguments that maybe it was 'only' 5.9m, etc.

          If anyone questions it, I give them a link to Yad Vashem's website, which lists the names and addresses, and tell them to get back to me when they finish counting.

          Incidental to Holocaust denial refutation, I think the sheer number of Poles killed deserves much more attention than it gets - it more fully describes the Nazi character and further illuminates the murder factory at Auschwitz, rather than diminishing it.

          1. Eclectic Man Silver badge

            Re: I met one the other day

            I went to the Jewish cemetery in Prague many years ago. On the walls are the names of all the Prague jews killed in the NAZI holocaust. I counted 64 with my family surname (there are far too many to count all names).

            The problems I have with referring to the Jewish Holocaust, rather than the NAZI holocaust are that:

            About 17 million people were deliberately murdered by the NAZIs (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holocaust_victims and https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/documenting-numbers-of-victims-of-the-holocaust-and-nazi-persecution) of which approximately 6 million were Jews. Seven million Russians, of which 1.3 million were Jews. The list of people selected for 'extermination' is long, including homosexuals, people with physical deformities or mental illness, supposedly 'sub-human' races (before the discovery of genetics), and, of course pacifists. Gunter Grass writes movingly of being in the HItler Youth and told to carry a rifle, when one of his fellows replies "Wir tun sowas nicht" (We don't do that). After the third attempt to get this lad to carry a rifle he was taken away and they never saw him again.*

            To call it the Jewish Holocaust is to deny the other 11 million victims their humanity.

            The second problem is that it implies that Jews were not harassed or murdered because of their race / religion at any other time by anyone else.

            Frankly, if we want better relations with Russia, including a memorial to their 7 million murdered in the NAZI Holocaust would be good start.

            (No, I'm not of Russian extraction, AFAIK.)

            * "Peeling the Onion", Gunter Grass, pub Harvill Secker, isbn 978-1-846-55062-1 (English translation)

  16. JDX Gold badge

    It's interesting that a community (Regtards) who is generally EXTREMELY anti censorship is rushing to attack someone for suggesting that censoring this particular topic is worth some consideration. I think banning it is a good idea but for anti-censorship types it does raise the question: are you actually anti-censorship? Or just against it as long as it's on topics you don't have a problem with?

    1. codejunky Silver badge

      @JDX

      I am mostly anti-censorship and I wouldnt ban people for these conspiracy theories to be honest. Some people take comfort in their beliefs and some people just dont know any better. We dont censor a kid for believing 2+2 <> 4, we teach them. Some people also seem to have a problem with being wrong and are unable to handle it, which I think might have something to do with the education system where right answers are expected and trial/error is unappreciated.

      The other problem with censorship is that while it might seem righteous in the right hands, the wrong hands would misuse it. So banning nazi's might seem right but do we ban communists? Yet people with those beliefs will never learn if they lurk in the dark with their beliefs. A guy with a sandwich board shouting about the end of the world 'praise jesus' is better for the world to see than to be banned.

    2. I ain't Spartacus Gold badge

      JDX,

      I agree with you that censorship isn't the greatest idea. And nobody should be comfortable with giving the power of deciding to people like Zuckerberg's Facebook - and Google and Twitter are little better.

      On the other hand though, Facebook is a private platform and therefore has the right to allow or ban stuff on it - without that being censorship. As does El Reg on its forums. Or say Disney, who have supposedly child-safe forums - which is something they can only achieve by paying serious numbers of people to moderate said forums and keep the teenagers from pretending to be 6 so they can swear at or troll young children.

      Personally I think the main problem isn't Facebook banning stuff or not - it's Facebook promoting stuff. Their whole money-making scheme is predicated on two things. Keeping people engaged and spending time on the site, and selling them adverts. The way they've chosen to do that is via the "news" stream. So the idea is that you see a steady bunch of posts from all your "friends" intermingled with adverts and whatever content from randoms that FB's algorithms choose to promote at you. Often targetted (if political) to agree with your prejudices/beliefs in order to keep you all happy and give you the warm and fuzzy feeling of being safe in the club. The whole point of this all is to give the adverts (and for some weird reason promoted content) the warm and fuzzy glow of approval that it's come from your friends and so if more trustworthy than if Facebook were just spewing a series of adverts at you all day. Which is of course exactly what they're doing.

      Clearly they've in the past decided that spewing a stream of horrible views at some users is worth it, because it might re-inforce their own horrible views and therefore keep them online and consuming adverts.

      Rather than face up to the implications of this, I guess it's easier for Zuckerberg to pontificate about free speech and consider banning "unacceptable" speech. Because the alternative is to admit that he's promoted hate speech in order to make a little extra profit - and is only really looking at stopping now that there's a serious risk of losing even more profit through possible government regulation.

      1. Dave314159ggggdffsdds Silver badge

        You say they've chosen to actively fo something, but in fact they've simply treated everything equally. How do you decide what's a special case that should be blocked?

        1. I ain't Spartacus Gold badge

          Dave-numbers,

          Facebook haven't ever chosen to treat content equally. They have a set of algorithms that generate all their users' news feeds. Said algorithms aim to push targetted adverts for profit, as well as a mix of posts from family, friends and whatever Facebook groups they've joined, as well as news, politics, cat videos, random stuff from the internet and weird quizzes designed to gain personal data or get people to sign themselves or friends up to marketing mailing lists.

          Facebook actively choose everything that goes into those news feeds. Obviously they don't have a bloke sitting at a desk deciding what will go into each person's feed today - and users' have some power over what they see by actively clicking on posts to say they don't want to see more of that type of stuff. As well as FB following people's preferences - so they'll get more of what they've previously clicked on. After all, the aim is to gain more ad sales by keeping people using Facebook as their main portal to the rest of the internet.

          But algorithmically-generated or not, Facebook are responsible for those choices that they are making. After all, they designed those algorithms.

          One of the traits of Facebook has been that because all they care about is user engagement, they've tended to push users' into echo-chambers. Showing them only stuff they like and spend time looking at. So if you're my Mum, you're interested in family stuff and all those weird quizzes. But not interested in clicking on the politics or cat videos. So her feed, that I've seen while fixing her computer, is full of family posts and shitty quizzes.

          Similarly my mate, on the soft left of the Labour Party, gets almost all political stories. And of course it's all from the new lefty media (places like Sqwawkbox, the Canary) as well as the more traditional Guardian. But it seems to be that the more you stoke up the outrage, the more clicks you get and the more Facebook therefore push your posts. Which is one of the forces increasing polarisation in politics, in my opinion.

          If Facebook lose their protection from the responsibilities that other publishers face, then they'll have to account for the stuff that they push into their users' news feeds. As they should be, given that they're the ones doing it. That would destroy their business model, because they don't have the resources, competence or intention to do that checking. So banning the things that most annoy the politicians who might regulate them appears to be their current tactic. Much cheaper than actually taking their responsibility as a news publisher seriously and doing a proper job. The next alternative is to get out of news publishing, and just to show family pictures and adverts - but that risks them making less money.

        2. Danny 2

          Decency and harm. For example you can look at a nude photograph of an eighteen year old on your device, but a nude photograph of an eight year old will land you in prison.

          1. Cynic_999

            You have to do a few mental gymnastics and add in a few unproven assumptions in order to show that any harm is caused by looking at a picture. Of course, while looking at a picture of a naked 8 year old is terribly wrong, looking at a picture of an 8 year old getting shot is perfectly OK (so long as the child is fully clothed of course).

          2. Hollerithevo

            Photograph of an eight year old

            Such a photographs is a photo of a crime scene. There is no 'innocent' use of it. Those who use such photos are, in a sense, co-conspirators, o like those who receive stolen goods (I know an offensively weak comparison), that is to say, part of the crime.

          3. jake Silver badge

            This example is not black and white. Stop using it.

            " For example you can look at a nude photograph of an eighteen year old on your device, but a nude photograph of an eight year old will land you in prison."

            I have a photo of a nude 8 year old hanging on the wall here in my office. It's a picture my Wife took of her sunbathing after a swim. The shot won numerous awards in amateur photography contests back in the day, despite being nothing more than a simple snapshot. There is absolutely nothing salacious about it, it's just a picture of my daughter from around 30 years ago.

            On the other hand, if I had nekkid pics of the same little girl at age 18 hanging on my walls, you'd have good reason to believe that there might be something wrong with me ...

  17. herman

    Ever increasing totals

    It is interesting that those numbers are always increasing. Give it another half century and it may be 10 million. About 1.1 million died in Auschwitz as explained on History.com: https://www.history.com/news/auschwitz-concentration-camp-numbers There were several other camps with similar numbers, but about a quarter of the victims were not Jewish.

    1. I ain't Spartacus Gold badge

      Re: Ever increasing totals

      More jews were killed by firing squad or in gas lorries in Russia than at Auschwitz-Birkenau. That was what the SS Einsatzgruppen were doing before the death camps were built. The Wanasee Conference (on "the Final Solution to the Jewish Problem in Europe") was called partly to find a more efficient way of murdering all the people they wanted to - because it's logistically hard to kill people in that way and also it's hard to find troops who can keep murdering people without morale collapsing.

      But as well as the death camps, we also have the concentration camps. The two are not quite the same. The SS had their own entire separate war economy, producing their own weapons and uniforms. Much of it done by slave labour in the camps. The prisoners were mostly deliberately fed fewer calories than they burned doing the work demanded of them. This was I believe actually worked out too, not just chance and wartime shortages. So I guess they were also death camps really, but they didn't have the gas chambers and crematoria - but that's what camps like Belsen and Ravensbruck were.

      Plus the Nazis had a whole department of slave labour, the Organisation Todt. So lots of people like Russian prisoners of war were fed into that, and worked to death, building roads, bunkers, invasion defences.

      There's also all the special factories for Hitler's favourite weapons, that were often buried in mountains. And were horrifically expensive in lives of slave labour. I believe the SS killed more workers building V2 rockets (and their factories) than they killed people using the damned things.

      1. Jellied Eel Silver badge

        Re: Ever increasing totals

        Plus the Nazis had a whole department of slave labour, the Organisation Todt. So lots of people like Russian prisoners of war were fed into that, and worked to death, building roads, bunkers, invasion defences.

        Indeed, and I think this is an important part of the "Never Forget" message. That part of history was strange and depressing. So camps started prior to Hitler becoming Chancellor with the Nazis effectively creating a shadow government. Then Himmler and others running their own 'police' force, rounding up political opponents and dissidents, then imprisoning them in camps for their own safety. So the rot started pre-war, and helped by ideas about eugenics that were popular at the time. Then came Hitler's rise to power, war, and systems like this-

        https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nazi_concentration_camp_badge

        And as you say, many of the Holocaust victims weren't immediately killed, but used by Todt, and then Speer as penal construction battalions, and worked to death. But there are huge amounts of evidence that these things happened, and didn't just happen to Jews.

        And there are also modern parallels. So in the climate change 'debate', non-conformists get branded as 'deniers', with the obvious connection to Holocaust denial. There are the occasional calls to lock up or even execute 'deniers' for crimes against humanity. Not sure what badge we should wear, but perhaps the 'Flat Earthers' can get the black blodt triangle. And we still have prisons with forced labour, and with projects like the 'Green New Deal', massive amounts of labor would be needed, and prison labour is cheap.. And of course there's another historical connection, ie Hitler's Green thoughts.

        But dehumanise, marginalise and criminalise is a sad pattern throught our history and usually the backdrop to other genocides.. Which we should never forget.

        As for Facepalm and others, there's the trend for 'fact checking' and de-platforming people who don't follow groupthink.. Which can be problematic if the 'fact checkers' get things wrong, or want to do a spot of historical revisionism. See for example-

        https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-54529836

        The announcement has led to a row on social media with some alleging "cultural whitewashing", where white actors portray people of colour.

        Some have said the role should instead go to an Arab or African actress.

        Regarding Gal Gadot playing Cleopatra.. Which is something the BBC's 'fact checkers' should have checked, ie Cleopatra was of the Ptolemaic dynasty, so perhaps the role should instead go to a Macedonian or Greek actress. Or being several generation Sabra, Gadot probably has a historically correct look for Cleopatra.. who certainly wasn't Arabic, or black African. The row is perhaps an example of modern Orientalism though.

        1. CrazyOldCatMan Silver badge

          Re: Ever increasing totals

          Or being several generation Sabra, Gadot probably has a historically correct look for Cleopatra..

          Same goes for Western depictions of Christ - he wouldn't have been a tall, handsome white guy.. (especially when you take Isiah 53 into account: "he had no form or beauty that would attract us"..).

          1. Jellied Eel Silver badge

            Re: Ever increasing totals

            Same goes for Western depictions of Christ - he wouldn't have been a tall, handsome white guy..

            Yep, probably had green skin and scales. But such are the joys of history, and a tendency to market icons towards their target audience. Or just create idealised representations of your subject. It must be at the back of artists minds that their model might execute them, if their portrayal wasn't flattering. Then again, we also have historical descriptions, and archaeological & genetic studies to give us some idea of what populations might have looked like.. or historical versions of racism and eugenics, ie the idea that the fairer the skin, the more divine. Some things never change I guess.

      2. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Ever increasing totals

        "Good old days" gives a more... hands-on, so to say, angle on holocaust, past the well-know gas-chambers aspect. Or, a Ponary Diary, 1941/43, neither for those with weak stomach. But then, those who deny holocaust are not interested in challenging their beliefs anyway, nobody likes to admit, even in private, they were wrong. So it's all fake, Jewish conspiracy, etc., you just shout louder.

  18. IGotOut Silver badge

    Repeat after me.

    A private company deciding what allowed on it's systems is NOT censorship. It is a business choice. End Of.

    1. Robert Grant

      Re: Repeat after me.

      Counterpoint:

      Censorship is the suppression of speech, public communication, or other information, on the basis that such material is considered objectionable, harmful, sensitive, or "inconvenient."[2][3][4] Censorship can be conducted by governments,[5] private institutions, and other controlling bodies.

      Governments[5] and private organizations may engage in censorship. Other groups or institutions may propose and petition for censorship.[6] When an individual such as an author or other creator engages in censorship of their own works or speech, it is referred to as self-censorship. General censorship occurs in a variety of different media, including speech, books, music, films, and other arts, the press, radio, television, and the Internet for a variety of claimed reasons including national security, to control obscenity, child pornography, and hate speech, to protect children or other vulnerable groups, to promote or restrict political or religious views, and to prevent slander and libel.

      Direct censorship may or may not be legal, depending on the type, location, and content. Many countries provide strong protections against censorship by law, but none of these protections are absolute and frequently a claim of necessity to balance conflicting rights is made, in order to determine what could and could not be censored. There are no laws against self-censorship.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: It is a business choice. End Of.

      unfortunately (?) it's not the end, it's the beginning, as those platforms have taken over the role of public spaces, happily given up by appointed bodies, for the sake of "cost optimisation", and those spaces were in the past, generally, governed, by local (state) governments. Which creates an incompatibility with non-governmental, omnipresent, business, thus tension, when the two collide over those private-public spaces.

    3. A_Melbourne

      Re: Repeat after me.

      "A private company deciding what allowed on it's systems is NOT censorship. It is a business choice"

      Facebook, Google, Amazon and Youtube are monopolies. They are utilities.

      How would you like your privatised electric supplier cutting off your power because it is a "business choice"?

      I think that French minister who, 250 years ago, said that people get the government they deserve was perfectly correct.

      1. jake Silver badge

        Re: Repeat after me.

        "Facebook, Google, Amazon and Youtube are monopolies."

        Oh, bullshit. I do not use a single thing that they provide, and yet I do everything that they provide without them. This is not a monopoly, no matter how your squint at it.

        "They are utilities."

        I categorically reject this. The world would not even blink, much less suffer long-term, if they were all to disappear today.

        "How would you like your privatised electric supplier cutting off your power because it is a "business choice"?"

        PG&E is doing that very thing over parts of Northern California as I type[0]. This is ACTUALLY affecting tens of thousands of people, unlike the otage at twitter yesterday.

        [0] They find it cheaper in the long haul to defer maintenance and kill the power during high-wind events than it is to properly maintain their kit and keep the power on. Their excuse is that it prevents wildfires ... Which were extremely rare back when they were actually maintaining their equipment properly. Go figure.

  19. Eclectic Man Silver badge

    Censorship vs Regulation

    Mark Zuckerberg, as I recall, said he did not want to be the arbiter of what could and could not be posted in Facebook or other social media, he thought that was a job for the politicians. And I must say I agree with him. Holocaust denial is a crime in some European countries, but it os for the countries to decide that not fro social media moguls to decide what cannot be posted. Otherwise we get the situation of powerful people deciding what is news and what is not, for their own financial or political benefit. Illegal content, pornography, incitement to criminal acts, defamation etc. should be regulated in my opinion. I just don't know how, but that does not mean we should not have the debate and just leave the decisions to people like Zuckerberg.

    1. Robert Grant

      Re: Censorship vs Regulation

      I agree as well. The press attitude to this is very odd. Maybe in a world of free speech, they don't remember that it's not guaranteed. Especially when they're badgering a global communications network to start deciding what may or may not be disseminated on that network.

    2. I ain't Spartacus Gold badge

      Re: Censorship vs Regulation

      That's a fair enough argument. Zuckerberg is not responsible for what anyone posts on Facebook. If it's highly offensive or illegal, then it's perfectly fine to wait until someone sees it and reports it, then remove it. I'm fine with that.

      However, once Facebook take something that one of their users post and turn it into content that Facebook choose to share - once they post it to the feeds of other users - then Facebook have published that post. And Facebook are then jointly responsible with the person that wrote it. They currently have an exemption from that law (the so-called Safe Harbour), which I don't think is either politically tenable nor morally justifiable. Once FB have the same legal liabilities as El Reg, for doing the same thing, then I'm happy.

      But Zuckerberg likes his free user-generate content. And doesn't want to be responsible for what he publishes. Or to have to pay to generate usuable content to sell adverts alongside. So his easy answer is to ban that stuff from FB. Which is fine too, it's a private company, and a private network - and so if he doesn't like it he has the right not to carry it.

  20. Jake Maverick

    :-(

    it get's worse by the day.....

    + I was always taught to believe it was 5 million....where is the evidence for the extra 20%?

    1. Eclectic Man Silver badge

      Numbers of dead in NAZI holocaust

      See:

      https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/documenting-numbers-of-victims-of-the-holocaust-and-nazi-persecution

      :-(

    2. Danny 2

      Who taught you that? It was six million when I was a kid in the '70s, then there's the Roma, the Slavs, Soviet POWs, the disabled, the homosexuals, the anarchists, the trade unionists.

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Holocaust#Death_toll

      1. Dinsdale247

        And two million Catholics...

  21. Danny 2

    The only thing necessary for the triumph of good

    ...is for evil men to do nothing.

  22. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Ha ha

    Boy is the author (and apparently Zuckerberg) going to be disappointed come January 2021...

  23. Jonjonz

    Yada Yada Yada... unless of course if your a politician, they can break MotherZuker's "community standards" as much as they please. The worst that can happen is the Mother Zuker may slap an ineffective "label" on your racist post.

  24. Grease Monkey Silver badge

    “thinking has evolved.”

    “thinking has evolved.”?

    What he really means is he's always thought that he could get away with letting people do what the hell they like on his platform in order to optimize his advertising revenue. But his thinking has recently evolved to believing that it looks as if punitive measures might be on the way if he doesn't clean up his act.

  25. martinusher Silver badge

    Free Speech?

    One of the problems with free speech is that people are likely to say things that you disagree with, things that are ridiculous or just plain wrong. Holocaust Deniers belong in this category -- its really difficult do deny the actions of a rouge government of a society obsessed not only with order but also in documenting it actions. So treat those deniuers with the benign amusement they deserve, nothing more.

    What we really do need to be careful of is that in promoting bans like this that subtle, but truly important, things don't get lost in the wash. Using the notion of Holocaust as an example (although strictly speaking even that's an incorrect term) the way its presented suggests that the effort to exerterminate unwanted people was confined to a specific group (Jews) in a particular way (Death Camps) in a particular slice of time (the early 1940s) by a specifc group of people ("Nazis"). This overlooks so much. The model for population removal are the Armenians in 1910's Turkey (or rather, the Ottoman Empire). Turks don't like it but is real and very well documented. The same thinking and processes were applied to Continental Jews with wholesale murder initially being confined to Slavic sorts in Poland, the Baltic States and particular Belyorussia. The process was extended to the Jews after it was realized that there was nothing else you could do with it, a model of pragmatism meeting necessity in a moral-free environment. ("Banality of Evil"). Then, of course, is the goings on in the East, especially but not confined to in China by the Japanese. (Then there's the later, smaller scale, genocide in Indonesia -- that was the 1960s.) There's much to say and this isn't the place to say it; just remember that this wasn't a one-off in human history.

    1. Danny 2

      Re: Free Speech?

      Please don't call me a spelling Nazi, but your spelling requires a checker even if you won't install one.

      deniuers, exerterminate, specifc, Belyorussia, and rouge only gets a pass as you could be referring to Kampuchea.

      I agree with your facts, motivation and overview, but the Shoah was the worst event in human history at least since Genghis Khan. And install a spell checker - I won't always be here!

  26. A_Melbourne

    This "genocide" is nowhere to be found in the voluminous memoirs of Churchill, Eisenhower and de Gaulle about the Second World War. Today, they would be prosecuted in several European countries for their "crime" - that is if there memoirs were to be even printed.

    Enjoy you freedom guys! I am 70 years old and I had a good life. :-)

  27. jelabarre59

    Elsewhere

    So is the same criteria that Faceborg and TWITter are using as an excuse to DELETE aly posts or links to NY Post articles investigating the criminal activities of Joe & Hunter Biden? Deletions and bans that are tantamount to election tampering?

    Yep, if your own particular speech doesn't match the particular narrative/agenda of "big tech", they'll silence you immediately.

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