<story><title>Removing Holocaust Denial Content</title><url>https://about.fb.com/news/2020/10/removing-holocaust-denial-content/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>ephimetheus</author><text>Holocaust denial is banned in Germany (same as swastikas by the way). It works really well. The only people complaining are literally people trying to twist perception of the arguably worst crime in the history of humanity, to make Germany look like a victim. FB is clearly doing the right thing here. Free speech has limits.</text></item><item><author>jeffreyrogers</author><text>How are they going to determine what is HD? Some scholars get labeled denialists because they have different estimates for the number of Jews killed in concentration camps. Seems worrying to have FB moderators determining what&amp;#x27;s acceptable historical debate and what is wrongthink.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>saas_sam</author><text>A cursory search reveals your characterization to be inaccurate. Note: I had no real interest in this topic until I read your critique which just sounded totally outlandish to me. The ONLY people complaining about this limitation are people with terrible motives? No legitimate philosophers, political scientists, free speech activists exist with valid critiques? They&amp;#x27;re all just evil historical revisionists, eh? Doubtful...&lt;p&gt;Sure enough, plenty of well-reasoned critiques exist from Jewish groups, Noam Chomsky (hardly an anti-Semite), Christopher Hitchens, and others.</text></comment>
<story><title>Removing Holocaust Denial Content</title><url>https://about.fb.com/news/2020/10/removing-holocaust-denial-content/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>ephimetheus</author><text>Holocaust denial is banned in Germany (same as swastikas by the way). It works really well. The only people complaining are literally people trying to twist perception of the arguably worst crime in the history of humanity, to make Germany look like a victim. FB is clearly doing the right thing here. Free speech has limits.</text></item><item><author>jeffreyrogers</author><text>How are they going to determine what is HD? Some scholars get labeled denialists because they have different estimates for the number of Jews killed in concentration camps. Seems worrying to have FB moderators determining what&amp;#x27;s acceptable historical debate and what is wrongthink.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>dcolkitt</author><text>&amp;gt; It works really well.&lt;p&gt;The Weimar Republic did have hate speech laws, that were vigorously enforced and similar in spirit to modern-day Germany&amp;#x27;s laws.[1] Not only did that fail to stop the rise of the Nazi party, but the legal machinery was actively co-opted post-1933 to censor anti-Nazi groups.&lt;p&gt;In contrast, in the 1930s the most ardent pro-free-speech countries were the America and Britain. (Contemporary British hate speech laws not being created until well after the war.) Yet unlike almost all of continental Europe, any nascent fascist movements in the US or UK remained extreme fringe groups that never gained any political traction.&lt;p&gt;The historical record is pretty clear. At best hate speech laws, do nothing to disarm extremist groups. America&amp;#x27;s 250 year history of free speech absolutism, with virtually no extremist groups gaining widespread traction is evidence of this. At worse hate speech laws are a dangerous single-point of failure for liberal democracy.&lt;p&gt;[1] &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.cato.org&amp;#x2F;policy-report&amp;#x2F;mayjune-2015&amp;#x2F;war-free-expression&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.cato.org&amp;#x2F;policy-report&amp;#x2F;mayjune-2015&amp;#x2F;war-free-exp...&lt;/a&gt;</text></comment>