Facebook, which has come under fire a number of times now over “fake news,” conspiracy theories, and offensive content posted on its platform, has traditionally opted for a hands-off approach to deal with problematic content. Now, founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg is reinforcing that mentality, explaining why he won’t ban Holocaust deniers on Facebook.
“Let’s take this a little closer to home,” Zuckerberg said in an interview with Recode. “So 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 because I think there are things that different people get wrong — I don’t think that they’re intentionally getting it wrong. It’s hard to impugn intent and to understand the intent.”
Very recently Zuckerberg was criticized for not banning InfoWars, which is known for spreading conspiracy theories and claiming mass shootings, like the Sandy Hook school shooting, are hoaxes. Facebook’s solution in that case, and similar ones, has been to deprioritize its posts in the News Feed.