Zuckerberg: Holocaust deniers won’t be banned

FACEBOOK chief executive Mark Zuckerberg Wednesday attempted to clarify his stance on posts by Holocaust deniers on the social network, after he was criticized for saying in an interview he would not ban such entries. “I personally find Holocaust denial deeply offensive, and I absolutely didn’t intend to defend the intent of people who deny that,” Zuckerberg said in remarks emailed to online platform Recode. In an interview published on Tuesday, Zuckerberg asserted: “I’m Jewish, and there’s a set of people who deny that the Holocaust happened.”

He added: “I find that deeply offensive. But at the end of the day, I don’t believe that our platform should take that down because I think there are things that different people get wrong. I don’t think that they’re intentionally getting it wrong (...)”

“I just think, as abhorrent as some of those examples are, I think the reality is also that I get things wrong when I speak publicly ... and I just don’t think that it is the right thing to say, ‘We’re going to take someone off the platform if they get things wrong, even multiple times.’” Zuckerberg made a distinction between people making mistakes and posting deliberate misinformation or incitement. He said that if people posting such content “were not trying to organize harm against someone, or attacking someone, then you can put up that content on your page, even if people might disagree with it or find it offensive.”