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Message: <br /><br /> If you are having trouble reading this email, you may view this article online at: http://www.jweekly.com/38066/full/38066/adl-wants-facebook-to-bar-holocaust-denier-groups/ <br /><br /> <b>ADL wants Facebook to bar Holocaust-denier groups</b> <br /> Thursday, May 14, 2009 | by stacey palevsky <br /><br /><p>Facebook, the popular social networking site based in Palo Alto, has removed from its site two groups promoting Holocaust denial.</p> <p>But the site has not removed all traces of Holocaust denial, and the Anti-Defamation League is dissatisfied with Facebook’s effort.</p> <p>“Our position on Holocaust denial is very clear: Holocaust denial is anti-Semitism,” said Jonathan Bernstein, regional director of the ADL in San Francisco.</p> <p>Facebook has been under pressure lately to remove Holocaust denier groups from its Web site. Facebook states in its terms of use that any of its estimated 200 million users can be banned if they post “any content that we deem to be harmful, threatening, unlawful, defamatory, infringing, abusive, inflammatory, harassing, vulgar, obscene, fraudulent, invasive of privacy or publicity rights, hateful, or racially, ethnically or otherwise objectionable.”</p> <p>Said Bernstein, “Holocaust denial is all of those things, and maybe we need to explain to them why this is the case.”</p> <p>Bernstein said he and his ADL colleagues were drafting a letter to Facebook this week “encouraging them to adhere to their own policy.”</p> <p>Several Holocaust denial groups, including “Holocaust: A series of lies” and “Holocaust is a myth,” were still listed as Facebook groups as of May 13.</p> <p>But two groups — titled “The Holocaust is a Holohoax” and “Based on Facts … There Was No Holocaust” — were banned May 11. Facebook spokesman Barry Schnitt said the action was taken because the groups were using Facebook as “a forum to promote hate,” according to JTA.</p> <p>“We are monitoring these groups, and if the discussion among members degrades to the point of promoting hate or violence, despite whatever disclaimer the group description provides, we will take them down,” Schnitt said.</p> <p>He told CNN that although the company does “abhor Nazi ideals and find Holocaust denial repulsive,” it also believes that people have a right to discuss these ideas, CNN reported last week.</p> <p>“We want Facebook to be a place where ideas, even controversial ideas, can be discussed,” Schnitt said.</p> <p>Facebook wants “to strike a very delicate balance between giving users the freedom to express their opinions and beliefs — even those that are controversial or that we may find repulsive — while also ensuring that individuals and groups of people do not feel threatened or endangered,” he added.</p> <p>Schnitt said that in countries where Holocaust denial is illegal, such as Germany and Israel, users would be denied access.</p> <p>But just because content is illegal in one country does not mean it will be removed from the site, Schnitt said.</p> <p>Rolf Schütte, German consul general in San Francisco, does not believe that banning or criminalizing Holocaust denial (as Germany does) violates freedom of speech.</p> <p>“My argument is always that there is no hierarchy of human rights,” Schütte said. “Liberty or freedom of speech is not higher than the dignity of a person.”</p> <p>In a recent blog post, Dallas attorney Brian Cuban blasted Facebook for allowing Holocaust denial groups to be formed. Cuban, who is of Russian Jewish descent (he is the brother of Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban), has been trying since last year to have the denial groups removed from Facebook.</p> <p>Bernstein said Holocaust denial is dangerous — no matter what the medium.</p> <p>“Holocaust deniers poke little holes into the accounts of Holocaust history … that gets people to doubt the voracity of the Holocaust,” he said.</p> <p>“But it’s not the sort of thing you can easily have a debate about. Few periods in history are more well-documented than the Holocaust. It’s not debating the Middle East conflict. It’s debating something that is an established fact.”</p>

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