In response to Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s claim that Holocaust denials should be allowed on the social media platform, Germany’s justice ministry said Thursday that it would not allow it.
“What Mark Zuckerberg wishes or demands for the American or international market is not possible in Germany,” a ministry spokeswoman told Politico.
[Opinion: Mark Zuckerberg stands up for free speech on Facebook, even for Holocaust deniers]
German Justice Minister Katarina Barley also tweeted Thursday that “[t]here must be no room for antisemitism. Verbal and physical attacks are part of that, as well as denying the Holocaust. The latter is being sanctioned here and is being persecuted consistently. #Zuckerberg.”
Zuckerberg, who is Jewish, said during a Recode Decode podcast interview that he finds Holocaust denial “deeply offensive,” but also added, “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.”
Holocaust denial is considered a criminal offense in Germany. In handling situations like this, Facebook’s head of global policy Monika Bickert said at an event in Oxford in May, according to The Guardian, that “something might be illegal in 10 countries, but if only two countries say ‘this is important to us, it’s illegal, remove it,’ we will do it. And if the others don’t, we will not remove it.” She continued, “Sometimes countries may have laws on the books — this is certainly true in the United States, I can say as an American lawyer — that are really out of date with how that culture thinks about speech, that are no longer enforced. So we wait for that government to make a request about it.”
Zuckerberg faced backlash for his comments from Jewish groups, according to The Guardian. Zuckerberg also sought to clarify what he said in an email to podcast moderator Kara Swisher, telling her: “I personally find Holocaust denial deeply offensive, and I absolutely didn’t intend to defend the intent of people who deny that.”
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