Holocaust policy tightened

BIRMINGHAM: Facebook yesterday said it was updating its hate speech policy to ban any content that denied or distorted the Holocaust.

The move came two years after Facebook chief executive Mark Zuckerberg said in an interview that while he found Holocaust denial deeply offensive, he did not think Facebook should delete such content.

‘‘I’ve struggled with the tension between standing for free expression and the harm caused by minimising or denying the horror of the Holocaust,’’ Zuckerberg, who is Jewish, said in a Facebook post yesterday.

‘‘My own thinking has evolved as I’ve seen data showing an increase in antiSemitic violence, as have our wider policies on hate speech,’’ he said.

The social media company said that, starting later this year, it would also direct people searching for terms associated with the Holocaust or its denial to credible information off Facebook.

In its blog post, Facebook cited a recent survey that found almost a quarter of adults in the US aged 1839 said they believed the Holocaust was a myth, that it had been exaggerated or they were not sure. — Reuters