Facebook allow vile anti-Semitic posts which claim the Holocaust was a hoax to stay up despite being flagged
Investigation into social media company revealed disgusting cartoons depicting Jews as hook-nosed cockroaches and articles mocking Anne Frank are left online
VILE anti-Semitic Facebook posts claiming the Holocaust was a hoax and that Jews are “barbaric and unsanitary” remain on the site despite being flagged up.
An investigation revealed disgusting cartoons depicting Jews as hook-nosed cockroaches and articles mocking Anne Frank can be found readily available on the social media platform.
It comes just weeks after Facebook’s founder Mark Zuckerberg caused outrage by defending not removing material denying the Holocaust.
The discovery by is the latest piece of bad news for the tech giant, after more than £100billion was wiped of the company’s share value yesterday.
The newspaper found scores of examples of “material designed to incite hatred and violence against Jews”.
And when they flagged it to the firm, many of them remained up despite breaching strict guidelines.
One of those still there shows a Star of David with the caption “the worst cancer I’ve ever seen”.
Posts linking to a website selling “holohoax” books banned by normal retailers and fan pages for convicted Holocaust denier David Irving exist on the site.
That is because such material is not classed it as hate speech, even though Jewish groups say as well as being deeply offensive it is a “longstanding deception tactic by anti-Semites”.
Asked about his company’s refusal to ban it, Mr Zuckerberg told Recode, a technology website: “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’.”
But Dave Rich, head of policy at Jewish group the Community Security Trust, said: “Holocaust denial by its definition is anti-Semitic.
“Even by Facebook’s own rules many of the posts left on the site include extra text that incites hatred against Jews.
“Holocaust denial is not a wrong opinion or alternative history — the whole point of it is to incite hatred against Jews by claiming there is a conspiracy.”
Politicians also blasted the social media site for the anti-Semitic posts, with Tory Damian Collins saying it once again showed a failure to follow their own guidelines.
The chair of the culture, media and sport select committee told The Times: “These disgraceful anti-Semitic posts have no place in society and no place on social media.
“Hiding behind freedom of speech has long been the defence of social media companies, but there is absolutely no excuse for the hosting of this vile content on Facebook.
“I urge Facebook to finally take action and properly implement its community guidelines.”
And Labour’s Yvette Cooper, chair of the home affairs select committee, said: “Facebook are providing people with a huge global platform to incite racial hatred and to deliberately spread lies that fuel antisemitism.
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“They can’t just shrug their shoulders and pretend it has nothing to do with them.
“What is the point of them even pretending to have community standards or social responsibility if they turn a blind eye to the promotion of violence and extremism?”
A spokeswoman for Facebook said that it did not allow anti-Semitic hate speech or incitement of violence of any kind.