Mark Zuckerberg stands up for free speech on Facebook, even for Holocaust deniers

Yet the right to speak on matters of public or political import is the most solemn of all rights. Without the right to offend on such matters, a natural right is chilled and the social need for speech finds dissipation. But Zuckerberg can’t count on modern liberals to defend his liberal enlightenment position. Writing at CNN, Professor Deborah Lipstadt declares that Zuckerberg’s allowance for Holocaust denier speech is wrong because such speech is “extremism posing as rational discourse. And his statements suggest that Zuckerberg has been duped by them into thinking that they’re any different than someone who proudly wears a swastika.”

Sorry, professor, it’s not up to you to define what constitutes “rational discourse,” it’s up to the public forum. And that forum’s power is measured by its endorsement, rejection, or apathy to stated words. Such is the way of our democracy and the assessment of Supreme Court justices reaching back centuries. And while Facebook is a private corporation able to set speech standards for users, Zuckerberg is right to follow the tradition of American speech.

But he’s facing a pretty widespread challenge. Take Vox.com’s theologian-in-chief, Matthew Yglesias, who believes Zuckerberg is just being an idiot.

I strongly disagree with Yglesias’ latest Vox explainer.

There is no comparison between Zuckerberg’s decision on Facebook speech and Elon Musk’s pathetic penchant for accusing his critics of being pedophiles. Because the latter is an ardent lie vulnerable to a defamation lawsuit and the former is the enabling of free speech.

But there’s a broader argument why Zuckerberg is right here. Namely, the Holocaust itself. Yes, vast, abundant evidence shows that the Holocaust occurred and took the lives of 6 million Jews and hundreds of thousands of others including Gypsies. The Holocaust entails matters of immense ongoing historical importance. These include the need to know all those Nazi officials who helped send so many millions of innocents to their deaths. And the work is clearly not yet done. It is notable that SS guards responsible for Holocaust war crimes are still being caught 73 years after the war ended.

I’m afraid that the Holocaust deniers, albeit inadvertently, are crucial towards this effort.

Take David Irving, a British historian who has written extensive histories of Nazi Germany and cast doubt on established Holocaust facts. While Irving’s work on Nazi party organization and warfighting may or may not be of value — historians disagree on this question but strongly lean towards skepticism — the author’s spurious Holocaust claims have encouraged countervailing scholarship to prove him wrong. When individuals like Irving say something that appears to lend credibility to Holocaust denial, other historians work to prove them wrong. They want to change history but in the end, thanks to good historians, they only end up ensuring that more individuals know what actually happened.

Stopping Irving and his compatriots is to curtail and chill speech. And to chill speech is to entertain ignorance. The rightful recording of Holocaust history certainly would not be so energetic were it not for Holocaust deniers in the first place. In this sense, we see how speech ultimately serves a positive construct even when it is delusional.

So yes, while the Holocaust is a deeply emotive issue (just ask Poles), it is also a history that demands scrutiny. Not to find hidden truths that show the Holocaust to be false (those truths do not exist except in the warped minds of a few deluded individuals), but rather to build greater understanding to the despicable scale of atrocity that the Holocaust truly was.

Ultimately, for that reason and the sacred value of freedom more generally, Mark Zuckerberg deserves credit for taking this stand for speech.