Facebook will now ban posts that deny or distort the Holocaust; Zuckerberg says his “thinking has evolved” as data shows an increase in anti-Semitic violence
including strongmen and their most avid followers. https://nyer.cm/bbhby6Q @newyorker : .@andrewmarantz reports on Facebook's inability or unwillingness to stamp out the hate speech and disinformation that is rampant on its platform. https://www.newyorker.com/... Brooke Binkowski / @brooklynmarie : I'm not generally much of a crier but this made me just want to gnash my teeth and weep in frustration https://twitter.com/... Emily Gore-Censki / @emilygorcenski : “After much thought, and a careful examination of the data, I have decided to stop throwing puppies off of cliffs. It's not always straightforward to determine what's right, so I expect you will give me unending praise, except for the puppy-off-cliff-brigade, who I let down.” https://twitter.com/... @slpng_giants : Well, @facebook does have trouble denying one genocide: https://twitter.com/... https://twitter.com/... Elad Ratson / @eladratson : It took millions of user reports, thousands of research papers, hundreds of boycotting corporations, dozens of antisemitic assassinations and one #Rohingya genocide for @Facebook to finally remove holocaust denial from its platform. #MarkZuckerberg is a slow learner! https://twitter.com/... https://twitter.com/... Colin McMillen, Ph.D. / @mcmillen : Absolutely. One of the first things Facebook, Google, and Amazon did after the Trump election was to cozy up to him. Does nobody remember this picture? https://twitter.com/... https://twitter.com/... Brooke Binkowski / @brooklynmarie : I'm going to go with “all of it.” It seems to me that this is what happens when you start to believe your own stupid hype about being able to influence human behavior at scale. Permission =/= persuasion. https://twitter.com/... David Steen, Ph.D. / @alongsidewild : Could have done this on day one. https://about.fb.com/... Kevin Roose / @kevinroose : The Social Network 2: You Can Still Deny Other Genocides https://twitter.com/... Auschwitz Memorial / @auschwitzmuseum : Facebook will update it's hate speech policy. It will ban posts that deny or distort the Holocaust & will direct people to authoritative sources if they search for information about the Nazi genocide. https://apnews.com/... Casey Newton / @caseynewton : The “Facebook only banned Holocaust denial because Biden is up in the polls” crew needs to account for the fact that Trump and Biden have identical content policies (repeal Section 230) Amy Spitalnick / @amyspitalnick : This is another way of saying that Holocaust denial has been allowed on Facebook for years. https://finance.yahoo.com/... Justin D. Joffe / @joffaloff : Hard to believe this is just happening now https://twitter.com/... Brian Beutler / @brianbeutler : Says a lot about both Zuck and Trump that Zuck lashed himself to “Holocaust denial” when it was at least even odds that Trump would win re-election, but has developed second thoughts about “Holocaust denial” in October 2020. https://twitter.com/... Amy Siskind / @amy_siskind : It took until October 2020 for Mark Zuckerberg to ban content denying the Holocaust. This man and this platform are trash! https://www.cnbc.com/... Sacha Baron Cohen / @sachabaroncohen : Good news—another win for #StopHateForProfit: Facebook should have banned Holocaust denial long ago, but better late than never. @YouTube, @Twitter, @reddit, @Google—this is not a hard call. Those who deny the Holocaust aim to perpetrate another! https://www.cnbc.com/... @chrisinsilico : This is obviously a needed development. But praising Facebook for finally banning Holocaust deniers after years doing literally nothing to stop the problem is like applauding an oil company for finally cleaning up its own oil spill. https://www.cnbc.com/... Charlie Warzel / @cwarzel : i am glad that mark zuckerberg is evolving on his thoughts after 16 years of being chill with holocaust deniers but also https://www.nytimes.com/... Hannah Gais / @hannahgais : the tree of life shooting was nearly two years ago. https://twitter.com/... Jacob Wolf / @jacobwolf : I'm not Jewish but it doesn't take a rocket scientist to see how common anti-Semitism, or prejudice towards any non-Christian faith, exists in the Western world. Sort of insane it took this long to deal with this. https://twitter.com/... Ej Dickson / @ejdickson : Anti-Semitic violence surged 57% in 2017. It hit an all-time high in 2019, per the ADL. Explain to me why Facebook didn't take action against Holocaust denialism years ago? Why is this happening now? https://twitter.com/... Erica Joy / @ericajoy : MESSAGE! it is not a coincidence that 8 years of D&I focus in tech was during the 8 years obama was in the white house. look for all the freeze peach and “no politics” CEOs to “realize” the importance of “ensuring hate doesn't have a place on their platform” if biden wins. https://twitter.com/... @pinboard : The problem here is not the substance of Zuckerberg's decision, but the rule by bro. Zuck's “thinking has evolved” on a specific kind of hate speech. Great! But it's a big world, and Facebook sets policy in dozens of countries, not all of which benefit from his mental attention https://twitter.com/... Erick Fernandez / @erickfernandez : They easily could have made these changes AT ANY POINT after 2016. The fact that they are doing it right now, mere weeks before the 2020 election with Trump appearing to be in bad shape polls-wise is so telling. https://twitter.com/... Joe Sudbay / @joesudbay : Thinking the same thing. Zuck really sidled up to Trump with the help of Joel Kaplan (the guy who also helped Kavanaugh get on SCOTUS.) They chose their side and payback could - and should - be a bitch https://twitter.com/... Dana Shell Smith / @ambdana : Which begs the question, why did Facebook allow Holocaust denial content on its platform in the first place? https://twitter.com/... Armando / @armandondk : Too late. Break it up. https://twitter.com/... @jakedavewebster : I said months ago basically that against all polling-based evidence that Zuckerberg and other tech-Bros continued to think that Trump was an electoral Svengali and would win an easy reelection. https://twitter.com/... Catalin Cimpanu / @campuscodi : After all the teens left for TikTok and all you're stuck with is QAnon and extremist groups, I guess you finally see the error in your ways https://twitter.com/... Lainna Fader / @lainnafader : “There are reportedly 500+ employees in Facebook's P.R. department. These days, their primary job is to insist that Facebook is a fun place to share photos and sell couches, not a vector for hate speech, misinformation, and violent extremist propaganda.” https://www.newyorker.com/... Lauren Peikoff / @laurenpeikoff : So it took until October 12, 2020. Awesome. Great. Facebook bans Holocaust denial, distortion posts https://apnews.com/... Stacy-Marie Ishmael / @s_m_i : I wonder what the data shows about the digital vectors that contributed to the increase in anti-Semitism https://twitter.com/... Steve Kovach / @stevekovach : “Reverses stance on Holocaust denial” is not an ideal headline for Facebook. You could argue that at least they changed their mind. But the fact that Zuckerberg was explicitly defending it as recently as two years ago... https://www.cnbc.com/... Sarah Frier / @sarahfrier : Civil rights groups have been pushing Facebook to make this change for years. It's “a big deal,” says ADL's Jonathan Greenblatt https://twitter.com/... Alex Hern / @alexhern : At the very least, Facebook needs to consider - and ideally, fund a significant amount of impartial research into - the extent to which its former policies are a direct cause of these problems. https://twitter.com/... Alex Hern / @alexhern : I really try not to criticise Facebook for doing the right thing. Improvements are to be celebrated, not condemned. But the company owes some contrition here, and can't simply get away with declaring “we now realise this might be bad” *in the year 2020*. Matthew Feldman / @matthew_feldman : Really proud to see this, and that @C4ARR's research has played a part in removing this poison from Facebook. https://twitter.com/... Jewish Leadership Council / @jlc_uk : This is very welcome from @Facebook and something Jewish communities around the world have been arguing for some time. https://twitter.com/... @cotlerwunsh : Very pleased to see this important step taken today by @Facebook in combatting #antisemitism on its platform. With over 2 billion users, it is imperative that Facebook continue to take such steps in combatting online hate. @sherylsandberg https://about.fb.com/... Brian Whelan / @brianwhelanhack : I first reported Holocaust Denial videos autoplaying after the content I was publishing in 2016. This is one of the biggest companies in the world... https://twitter.com/... Judd Legum / @juddlegum : Buried lead: Holocaust denial content has been permitted on Facebook UNTIL TODAY https://twitter.com/... Steve Herman / @w7voa : “Today we are updating our hate speech policy to prohibit any content that denies or distorts the Holocaust,” announces @Facebook. https://twitter.com/... Janosch Delcker / @janoschdelcker : Facebook announced to update its hate speech policy and that it will ban content denying or distorting the Holocaust. That's big. https://about.fb.com/... @honestreporting : Excellent news. @Facebook has just announced it has updated its hate speech policy and will now be removing content that denies or distorts the Holocaust following consultation with organizations in Israel and around the world about fighting antisemitism. https://about.fb.com/... Adrian Weckler / @adrianweckler : Big: Facebook will now remove Holocaust denial content. Reversal as Zuck was against it in 2018. But cites recent US survey of adults aged 18-39: “Almost a quarter said they believed the Holocaust was a myth, exaggerated or they weren't sure.” https://about.fb.com/... Davey Alba / @daveyalba : Finding: The growth rate of interactions w/ deceptive outlet content is higher than the growth rate of interactions of other web content on FB (for “web content,” researchers used @NewsWhip reports, which is data based straight out of the Facebook API) https://www.nytimes.com/... Hamza Shaban / @hshaban : Worth revisiting this persuasive essay from 2018, when Zuckerberg said Facebook wouldn't always ban Holocaust deniers. Written by a moderator of the AskHistorians subreddit, experts have long known this: “debating” denialists is the goal of denialists https://slate.com/... @slpng_giants : Imagine being proud to announce this after providing a massive platform for it for years. https://twitter.com/... Hamza Shaban / @hshaban : July 2018 / October 2020 https://twitter.com/... Alex Kantrowitz / @kantrowitz : Facebook is now clear: What's said on its services translates to the real world. It moves from “We don't want to be the arbiter of truth” to “Our decision is supported by the well-documented rise in anti-Semitism globally.” https://about.fb.com/... Jason Abbruzzese / @jasonabbruzzese : Mark Zuckerberg once pretty famously used Holocaust denialism as a line the company did not want to cross: https://www.vox.com/... https://twitter.com/... @pranavdixit : Only took until 2020. https://twitter.com/... Jay Yarow / @jyarow : This is a reversal of the previous position held by the CEO. https://twitter.com/...
Zuckerberg now says his “own thinking has evolved” on the issue as he's “seen data showing an increase in anti-Semitic violence.” https://www.facebook.com/... https://twitter.com/...
I'll ask the unasked question here: How much of this is Facebook waking up to Biden +12, +11, +14 polls and frantically reversing course, realizing they were bracing for a pro-Trump regulatory posture until 2024 and had no real backup plan? https://about.fb.com/...
This has been years in the making. Having personally engaged with @Facebook on the issue, I can attest the ban on Holocaust Denial is a big deal. Whether it's @ADL & #StopHateForProfit's insistence, #NoDenyingIt-it doesn't matter. Glad it finally happened. https://finance.yahoo.c…
FB says denying the holocaust is against the rules. Zuckerberg very publicly defended this content a few years ago to show how much he believed in free speech Zuck says his thinking has evolved w/ data showing an increase in anti-Semitic violence https://www.vox.com/... https://t…
Well this is a much needed switch and at 180 turn from what Zuckerberg told me about Holocaust denial just 2 years ago: https://www.vox.com/... https://about.fb.com/...
16 years after Facebook launched, two years after Zuckerberg explicitly said Facebook wouldn't remove holocaust denial posts, and two months after researchers found Facebook's algorithm was actively recommending holocaust denial content to some users. https://twitter.com/...
The absence of an apology here is notable. Also absent: any acknowledgement that allowing Holocaust denial on Facebook may have contributed to those trends in anti-Semitic violence he's now citing. https://twitter.com/...
Facebook has the power to address disinformation and hate on their platform. They're just using it poorly. The right question isn't ‘Should Facebook do more or less?’ but ‘How is Facebook enforcing its rules, and who is set up to benefit from that?’ https://www.newyorker.com/...
Flashback to 2018 when Zuckerberg told @karaswisher, “I'm Jewish, and there's a set of people who deny that the Holocaust happened. I find that deeply offensive. But at the end of the day, I don't believe that our platform should take that down...” https://www.vox.com/...
Mark Zuckerberg often invokes the lofty ideals of free speech, but his actions make more sense when viewed as an outgrowth of his business model. Facebook's incentive is to keep people on the platform—including strongmen and their most avid followers. https://nyer.cm/bbhby6Q
‘For profit’..? Are there really people making fortunes discussing the holocaust on Facebook? What a clever frame. If you're going to fight to prevent freedom of speech and open discussion, at least have the decency to be honest about the ‘why’ https://twitter.com/...
Holocaust denial seemed to be good for business until Zuckerberg read the polling averages for Biden. A policy update isn't enough. It's time to address a business model that has allowed hate to flourish on their platforms, valuing revenue over human lives and democracy. https://…
.@andrewmarantz reports on Facebook's inability or unwillingness to stamp out the hate speech and disinformation that is rampant on its platform. https://www.newyorker.com/...
It took 14 years but #stophateforprofit has finally broken the free speech mantra > Facebook bans Holocaust denial, distortion posts ↘️ https://apnews.com/...
The thing that pisses me off about this more than anything else is that the moderation and content policies of the most vulnerable people on the planet are at the whim of a billionaire who no matter his background cannot possibly identify with the most vulnerable in society. http…
Looking at Facebook's change in Holocaust policy today, you have to remember how much of an embarrassment it became for the co in the first place. In 2018, Zuckerberg gave an interview in which he specifically used Holocaust denial as an example of how FB stood for free speech. h…
One of the most insightful essays I've ever read about confronting bad-faith actors and how propaganda “works” in online media, from people who deal with this every day. This is the first sentence: “There can be no debate with Holocaust deniers.” https://slate.com/...
“After much thought, and a careful examination of the data, I have decided to stop throwing puppies off of cliffs. It's not always straightforward to determine what's right, so I expect you will give me unending praise, except for the puppy-off-cliff-brigade, who I let down.” htt…
Partly but they are also reacting to the House Dems call this week to break them up and the real threat of a big lawsuit verdict for providing a platform for domestic terrorists to plan and perform acts of violence, especially against govt entities and officials https://twitter.c…
It took 10 years for Facebook to take a stand against Holocaust denial and misinformation. 10 years. What did it? Holocaust survivors sharing their testimonials again, an advertising boycott, and lots of bad press. No advances in ethics or values though https://apnews.com/...
It took millions of user reports, thousands of research papers, hundreds of boycotting corporations, dozens of antisemitic assassinations and one #Rohingya genocide for @Facebook to finally remove holocaust denial from its platform. #MarkZuckerberg is a slow learner! https://twit…
Absolutely. One of the first things Facebook, Google, and Amazon did after the Trump election was to cozy up to him. Does nobody remember this picture? https://twitter.com/... https://twitter.com/...
I'm going to go with “all of it.” It seems to me that this is what happens when you start to believe your own stupid hype about being able to influence human behavior at scale. Permission =/= persuasion. https://twitter.com/...
Facebook will update it's hate speech policy. It will ban posts that deny or distort the Holocaust & will direct people to authoritative sources if they search for information about the Nazi genocide. https://apnews.com/...
The “Facebook only banned Holocaust denial because Biden is up in the polls” crew needs to account for the fact that Trump and Biden have identical content policies (repeal Section 230)
Says a lot about both Zuck and Trump that Zuck lashed himself to “Holocaust denial” when it was at least even odds that Trump would win re-election, but has developed second thoughts about “Holocaust denial” in October 2020. https://twitter.com/...
Good news—another win for #StopHateForProfit: Facebook should have banned Holocaust denial long ago, but better late than never. @YouTube, @Twitter, @reddit, @Google—this is not a hard call. Those who deny the Holocaust aim to perpetrate another! https://www.cnbc.com/...
This is obviously a needed development. But praising Facebook for finally banning Holocaust deniers after years doing literally nothing to stop the problem is like applauding an oil company for finally cleaning up its own oil spill. https://www.cnbc.com/...
I'm not Jewish but it doesn't take a rocket scientist to see how common anti-Semitism, or prejudice towards any non-Christian faith, exists in the Western world. Sort of insane it took this long to deal with this. https://twitter.com/...
Anti-Semitic violence surged 57% in 2017. It hit an all-time high in 2019, per the ADL. Explain to me why Facebook didn't take action against Holocaust denialism years ago? Why is this happening now? https://twitter.com/...
MESSAGE! it is not a coincidence that 8 years of D&I focus in tech was during the 8 years obama was in the white house. look for all the freeze peach and “no politics” CEOs to “realize” the importance of “ensuring hate doesn't have a place on their platform” if biden wins. https:…
The problem here is not the substance of Zuckerberg's decision, but the rule by bro. Zuck's “thinking has evolved” on a specific kind of hate speech. Great! But it's a big world, and Facebook sets policy in dozens of countries, not all of which benefit from his mental attention h…
They easily could have made these changes AT ANY POINT after 2016. The fact that they are doing it right now, mere weeks before the 2020 election with Trump appearing to be in bad shape polls-wise is so telling. https://twitter.com/...
Thinking the same thing. Zuck really sidled up to Trump with the help of Joel Kaplan (the guy who also helped Kavanaugh get on SCOTUS.) They chose their side and payback could - and should - be a bitch https://twitter.com/...
I said months ago basically that against all polling-based evidence that Zuckerberg and other tech-Bros continued to think that Trump was an electoral Svengali and would win an easy reelection. https://twitter.com/...
After all the teens left for TikTok and all you're stuck with is QAnon and extremist groups, I guess you finally see the error in your ways https://twitter.com/...
“There are reportedly 500+ employees in Facebook's P.R. department. These days, their primary job is to insist that Facebook is a fun place to share photos and sell couches, not a vector for hate speech, misinformation, and violent extremist propaganda.” https://www.newyorker.com…
“Reverses stance on Holocaust denial” is not an ideal headline for Facebook. You could argue that at least they changed their mind. But the fact that Zuckerberg was explicitly defending it as recently as two years ago... https://www.cnbc.com/...
Civil rights groups have been pushing Facebook to make this change for years. It's “a big deal,” says ADL's Jonathan Greenblatt https://twitter.com/...
At the very least, Facebook needs to consider - and ideally, fund a significant amount of impartial research into - the extent to which its former policies are a direct cause of these problems. https://twitter.com/...
I really try not to criticise Facebook for doing the right thing. Improvements are to be celebrated, not condemned. But the company owes some contrition here, and can't simply get away with declaring “we now realise this might be bad” *in the year 2020*.
Very pleased to see this important step taken today by @Facebook in combatting #antisemitism on its platform. With over 2 billion users, it is imperative that Facebook continue to take such steps in combatting online hate. @sherylsandberg https://about.fb.com/...
I first reported Holocaust Denial videos autoplaying after the content I was publishing in 2016. This is one of the biggest companies in the world... https://twitter.com/...
“Today we are updating our hate speech policy to prohibit any content that denies or distorts the Holocaust,” announces @Facebook. https://twitter.com/...
Facebook announced to update its hate speech policy and that it will ban content denying or distorting the Holocaust. That's big. https://about.fb.com/...
Excellent news. @Facebook has just announced it has updated its hate speech policy and will now be removing content that denies or distorts the Holocaust following consultation with organizations in Israel and around the world about fighting antisemitism. https://about.fb.com/...
Big: Facebook will now remove Holocaust denial content. Reversal as Zuck was against it in 2018. But cites recent US survey of adults aged 18-39: “Almost a quarter said they believed the Holocaust was a myth, exaggerated or they weren't sure.” https://about.fb.com/...
Finding: The growth rate of interactions w/ deceptive outlet content is higher than the growth rate of interactions of other web content on FB (for “web content,” researchers used @NewsWhip reports, which is data based straight out of the Facebook API) https://www.nytimes.com/...
Worth revisiting this persuasive essay from 2018, when Zuckerberg said Facebook wouldn't always ban Holocaust deniers. Written by a moderator of the AskHistorians subreddit, experts have long known this: “debating” denialists is the goal of denialists https://slate.com/...
Facebook is now clear: What's said on its services translates to the real world. It moves from “We don't want to be the arbiter of truth” to “Our decision is supported by the well-documented rise in anti-Semitism globally.” https://about.fb.com/...
Mark Zuckerberg once pretty famously used Holocaust denialism as a line the company did not want to cross: https://www.vox.com/... https://twitter.com/...