Facebook has recently been faced with a conundrum of almost unthinkable depths – ban Holocaust denial groups or leave them be. The problem is Facebook’s very nature as a melting pot of different cultures, races, religions, and beliefs. Is it up to Facebook to govern people’s thoughts and feelings on certain topics?

Facebook is full of people from all walks of life. This diverse membership, which is now estimated to number over 200 million users, includes many who proscribe to beliefs completely out of sync with the majority of decent human beings. One of which is Holocaust denial, the literal belief that the Nazi genocide of 6  million Jews never happened and is in fact a hoax being perpetrated by Jewish people themselves in order to take over the world.

This is, of course, preposterous and merely the starting point for unambiguous and unfaltering hatred for all Jewish people. There are many Holocaust denial Facebook groups, where these ludicrous people who deny the startling amount of evidence that the Holocaust did indeed take place can find like-minded people and spread their obnoxious hatred of a race of people.

The question of what Facebook should do about these groups has recently been asked by Brian Cuban and then latched onto by Michael Arrington over at TechCrunch. Cuban in particular has held nothing back in his views that Facebook should ban these groups. But should it?

In light of the controversy of the last few days, Facebook has now disbanded two of the groups which had descended into hatred and chaos. However, it has made clear it intends to stick to its policy of allowing similar groups to be set up and leaving the ones already in existence alone. Because, quite simply, denying the holocaust is not a violation of the site’s terms of service.

The key argument is whether denying the Holocaust constitutes hate speech or not. If it did then these groups would be thrown to the wolves in the same way groups set up in support of the Ku Klux Klan and the Nazis were. Facebook believes Holocaust denial on its own isn’t the same, and unless the members of these groups show their hand as wanting to wipe all Jews off the face of the Earth then it’s better to let people see how stupid they are.

These Holocaust denial groups on Facebook are an absolute disgrace but I’m not sure whether Facebook should have to decide whether to allow freedom of speech or not. Facebook is an open forum where views of all kinds are being shared on a daily basis. Where should the line be drawn between stopping hatred and stopping people’s right to air their views, even if those views are absolutely pathetic?

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Entry was posted on Tuesday, May 12th, 2009 at 11:42 pm under Internet, Opinion, Social Media.

Read more entries by Dave Parrack.
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