Facebook will remain open to conspiracy theories, including to claims that the Holocaust never happened, according to company CEO Mark Zuckerberg.
"Look, as abhorrent as some of this content can be, I do think that it gets down to this principle of giving people a voice," Zuckerberg said in an interview with Recode that was published on Wednesday.
He made the comments as Facebook is facing flak for refusing to ban conspiracy theory sites from the platform. During his remarks, Zuckerberg tried to defend Facebook's policies, arguing that he was protecting free speech. But in the same interview, he appeared to defend conspiracy theorists who claim that the Holocaust is a hoax.
"I find that deeply offensive. But at the end of the day, 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," he said.
Zuckerberg, who is Jewish, went on to say: "It's hard to impugn intent (of Holocaust deniers) and to understand the intent."
Facebook's CEO made the comments to explain why the company won't outright ban conspiracy theory-promoting pages or users from the social network. According to Zuckerberg, "Everyone gets things wrong, and if we were taking down people's accounts when they got a few things wrong, then that would be a hard world for giving people a voice."
However, critics have been quick to slam Zuckerberg's line of argument, which suggests that Holocaust deniers and people peddling conspiracy theories are simply misguided.
"Holocaust denial is a willful, deliberate and longstanding deception tactic by anti-Semites that is incontrovertibly hateful, hurtful, and threatening to Jews," the Anti-Defamation League said in a statement. "Facebook has a moral and ethical obligation to not allow its dissemination."
Holocaust deniers are malicious, violent, and mean exactly what they say. They deny the genocide of six million Jews and others, including five of my family members.
For Mark Zuckerberg, one of the most powerful men in the world, to cut them slack is despicable. — marisa kabas (@MarisaKabas) July 18, 2018
Holy shit letting Mark Zuckerberg talk to humans is a terrible idea. No Zuck, the intention of Holocaust deniers doesn't matter - the impact of their hate speech does. So this is where we are at. The CEO of Facebook is ACTUALLY DEFENDING HOLOCAUST DENIERS. https://t.co/4oTWClhhH3 — Christopher Wylie ????? (@chrisinsilico) July 19, 2018
Conspiracy sites such as InfoWars have also repeatedly promoted misinformation including that 9/11 was an inside job and that the Sandy Hook school shooting in 2012 was a hoax. However, the website's Facebook page has been allowed to remain, and currently has close to 1 million followers.
Zuckerberg's solution to false information is to downgrade the content from people's Facebook News Feeds and prevent the internet posts from going viral. However, critics argue that the company is nevertheless creating a safe haven for people attempting to spread hate.
The controversy is stirring up more debate on free speech rights versus stopping misinformation. In the meantime, Zuckerberg has clarified his comments. In an email to Recode, he said: "I personally find Holocaust denial deeply offensive, and I absolutely didn't intend to defend the intent of people who deny that."
"Our goal with fake news is not to prevent anyone from saying something untrue — but to stop fake news and misinformation spreading across our services. If something is spreading and is rated false by fact checkers, it would lose the vast majority of its distribution in News Feed," he added. "And of course if a post crossed line into advocating for violence or hate against a particular group, it would be removed."