49 percent of Telegram posts about the Holocaust deny or distort the events, according to new report
According to a new study, about half of all references to the Holocaust on the encrypted messaging service, Telegram, either distort the facts about the genocide of the Jewish people, or deny that it happened at all.
The research, which was carried out by UNESCO, the United Nations Department for Global Communications, and the World Jewish Congress, looked at more than 4,000 posts about the Holocaust on various social media platforms, including Facebook, Instagram, TikTok and Twitter.
Holocaust denial rejects the idea that the Nazis committed genocide against the Jews during the Holocaust. Holocaust distortion frequently involves comparisons between the Holocaust and other, often unrelated, situations or events – such as various issues to do with both capitalist economic systems and communist systems of government, as well as various governments’ policies towards dealing with the coronavirus pandemic – in such a way that it makes the Holocaust seem less significant than it really was or diminishes the horror of it. Sometimes the Holocaust can even be celebrated or glorified in this way.
The authors of the report found the greatest prevalence of Holocaust denial and Holocaust distortion on Telegram, amounting to 49 percent of all Holocaust-related posts. This compared to nineteen percent of Twitter posts, seventeen percent on TikTok, eight percent on Facebook, and three percent on Instagram. On Telegram 80 percent of the posts in German either denied or distorted the Holocaust.
The report says that “The biggest defence against the dangers of Holocaust denial and distortion is to advance historial liceracy informed education about the history of the Holocaust within school curricula and education systems.”
The UN Secretary General, António Guterres, said that “Understanding the history of the Holocaust is crucial to safeguarding our future. If we fail to identify and confront the lies and inhumanity that fueled past atrocities, we are ill-prepared to prevent them in the future.”
Campaign Against Antisemitism reports on news and incidents relating to antisemitism worldwide.
