Twitter follows Facebook in banning Holocaust denial

Twitter has confirmed that it will ban and remove posts that endorse Holocaust denial, following Mark Zuckerberg’s announcement last week that Facebook will now enforce a similar policy on its platforms.

A spokesperson for Twitter reportedly said that posts and accounts that “deny or distort” or circulate disinformation on events, including the Holocaust, would be banned under Twitter’s hateful conduct policy. This has also been extended to include the glorification of historical acts of violence, persecution and genocides.

Mr Zuckerberg announced on 12th October that his platform’s revised hate speech policy would prohibit such offensive content and instead direct users to “authoritative sources to get accurate information.” The recent move followed a decision to ban the antisemitic conspiracist movement QAnon, which saw thousands of associated Twitter accounts removed over the last few months as well.

Twitter has assured users that the company will continue to work with a number of partners to tackle antisemitism and hateful conduct across the platform, including NGOs, the Jewish community, governments and several civil society partners.

In a public statement, a spokesperson reportedly said: “We strongly condemn antisemitism, and hateful conduct has absolutely no place on our service. Our Hateful Conduct Policy prohibits a wide range of behaviour, including making references to violent events or types of violence where protected categories were the primary victims, or attempts to deny or diminish such events.”

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