Our report card methodology involves both evaluating the publicly stated policies of the platforms and their enforcement responses as part of our investigation. As policies are only as strong as how they are enforced, we weighted each tech company's enforcement more heavily in evaluating its efforts to address Holocaust denial on its platform.
In response to this scorecard, Reddit has described its platform as having an explicit Holocaust denial policy, pointing to this post about Reddit’s use of “quarantines”, which used holocaust denial as an example of content that could be "quarantined". However, ADL views "quarantining" not as a policy but as an enforcement action. Quarantining does not constitute a policy applicable to a type of hate content, but an action to be taken against content that violates some other platform policy. We therefore have not allocated a point to Reddit for having an explicit Holocaust Denial policy. We note that even if we did allocate a point to Reddit for quarantining, our ultimate grade assessment of the platform's response to Holocaust denial content would not change.
Explicit Holocaust Denial Policies
For this category, we looked across the existing policies of digital social platforms to see if they had a policy explicitly designed to address Holocaust denial. Both Twitch's and Facebook's policies ban Holocaust denial under a subcategory of their hate policies.
From Facebook’s hate speech policy, January 2021
From Twitch’s hateful conduct policy, January 2021
Facebook has one of the most explicit Holocaust denial policies, but it is also the only platform in our investigation that either failed to respond to our reports or claimed the content we reported did not violate its Holocaust denial policy. On the other hand, Twitch has an explicit Holocaust denial policy and implemented it against the content we reported as part of our investigation.
On other platforms, such as YouTube and TikTok, Holocaust denial policies take a slightly more broad form that focuses on content that attempts to "deny that a well-documented, violent event took place." This would include the denial of the Holocaust, but also the denial of other well-documented genocides, mass shootings and atrocities such as the Sandy Hook elementary school shooting or the genocide of the Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar. Other platforms go further still. Roblox, a platform primarily for young people under 14, has a policy that prohibits all content regarding "atrocities, massacres, and other shocking real (or pseudo-real) world events." We gave credit to platforms with an explicit Holocaust denial policy under one of these categories in our report card.
General Hate Policies
For this category, we looked at tech company's existing policies to see if they had a broad policy around hateful content on their platforms. Here, we looked for cross-platform rules regarding content or behavior that target individuals or groups who belong to a vulnerable or marginalized community. In a U.S. context, this would include people or groups targeted because of their actual or perceived race, ethnicity, religion, gender, gender identity, sexual orientation or disability. Given how online platforms have contributed to the spread and amplification of hate in the past several years, this type of policy should be foundational to any attempts at content moderation of a platform. There is no excuse for platforms not to have robust and broad policies around hate. For this reason, this category was weighted less heavily than the explicit Holocaust denial policy category.
Effective Product Level Efforts to Address Holocaust Denial
Many of the platforms included in this investigation have done extensive work removing Holocaust denial content, redirecting users to credible information about the Holocaust, or putting safeguards in place to prevent the easy discoverability and amplification of Holocaust denial content. For example:
- Searches for "Holocaust denial" or "Holohoax" on YouTube directs the user to credible videos that debunk Holocaust denial.
- TikTok and Roblox do not allow users to search for "Holohoax" when trying to find content.
- Facebook has removed some of its larger Holocaust denial groups after its policy change in October 2020.
This report card category gives a platform rating regarding the degree to which we found these efforts effectively mitigated our investigators' efforts in finding Holocaust denial content. We gave credit to those platforms for whom a search for common terms or phrases associated with Holocaust denial, such as "Holohoax," resulted in few or no search results, redirected users to credible information, or blocked a search around such terms and phrases.
Reporting Effectiveness and Transparency
Users have to trust that their reports are being addressed to be effective as part of content moderation on digital social platforms. Two categories in our report card speak to this. The first focuses on response time: Did the platform investigate the report and promptly respond to the user? This category does not include auto-generated messages to the user affirming receipt of a report. Instead, it counts any follow-up messages indicating that the platform conducted an investigation and decided whether to enforce its policies. We awarded credit to platforms that responded with the results of their investigation and enforcement decisions within 24 hours.
The second category around the effectiveness of reporting involves explainability. Does the user understand why a platform has made a certain decision based on its stated policies? None of the reports we submitted as part of this investigation that received a response was given a specific reason why an action was or was not taken. This is problematic because it further obfuscates how these platforms make decisions and erodes trust in whether or not the work that users put in to report hateful content is being reviewed or addressed in any meaningful way.
For example, Facebook determined multiple videos from the BitChute channel called "Holocaust Lies Exposed" did not violate its specific community guidelines around Holocaust denial. These videos included captions such as "Holohoaxers talking shit" and "Holohoax tales," and comments such as, "How was it ever possible that people with even half a brain believed this garbage?" In communicating this decision to the user, Facebook stated, "The video was reviewed, and though it doesn't go against one of our specific Community Standards, we understand that it may be offensive to you and others." It offered no additional context and took no further action.
At the same time, Twitter decided to remove content and lock a user's account for a single tweet calling the Holocaust a "#sixmillion #HoloHoax #lie," despite Twitter not having an explicit public-facing policy regarding Holocaust denial. Twitter has said that it has enforced against Holocaust denial under its hate policy in the past based on internal guidance, but has not updated its public-facing policy to reflect this statement. While the above tweet was reported under Twitter's hate speech policy, the follow-up on the report stated, "After our review, we've locked the account for breaking our rules." We can assume this was enforced under the company's hate policy, but no specific rule or category of rule was cited. Even when platforms make strong and swift decisions, users should know why both for their edification and build trust in the reporting system.
Transparency at the platform and the user level is imperative for technology companies operating digital social platforms. Unfortunately, as this investigation found, no company was transparent about the policy rationale for its decisions.
Action Taken on Holocaust Denial Content
The category we weighted most heavily in this investigation and our report card was whether the platforms to which we reported Holocaust denial content took any action to enforce their stated policies based on our user reports. Holocaust denial is hate speech, rooted in antisemitism and antisemitic conspiracy theories and should have no place on private digital social platforms that purport to be inclusive spaces for all people.
There can certainly be space on platforms for discussion of hateful phenomena, but ADL's experts judged each piece of content that was reported to the platform as part of this investigation to contain blatant and uncritical Holocaust denial.
The following are a few examples of unaddressed content that remain active as of this writing, despite being reported to the platforms in question under their anti-hate policies.
Only Twitter and Twitch decided to take action against the Holocaust denial content reported. Other platforms stated the content reported did not violate their policies or provided no response at all.
The following are a few examples of unaddressed content that remain active as of this writing, despite being reported to the platforms in question under their anti-hate policies.
Facebook
In this video, noted antisemite "Brother Nathaniel" Kapner makes a variety of Holocaust denial statements, such as "there were no gas chambers."
Instagram
This post is tagged with the hashtag #holocaustisalie and questions the validity of six million Jews' deaths in the Holocaust.
YouTube
This video features participants expressing Holocaust denial. One person said:
- "The point is the Holocaust has no standing as a historical event. It has standing as a religious concoction because the cult of the Holocaust and Israel are tied in with quasi-religious mindset that is impervious to criticism, which is why people are persecuted even for uttering a rational defense of information that contradicts the official version. You can criticize any aspect of history but if you try to criticize the Holocaust you're persecuted and that calls into question well what is the Holocaust."
TikTok
This account is one of several with the username “hol0caustwasahoax”, replacing the second “o” in Holocaust with a 0 to avoid filters put in place by TikTok.
Reddit
Holocaust denial is prevalent and easy to find on Reddit. As of this writing, none of the reported posts was addressed.
Twitter
Twitter took action against many of the tweets reported as part of this investigation, despite not having a specific policy against Holocaust denial. However, of note was that Twitter only took action on 12 percent of non-English language tweets reported versus 85 percent of English language tweets reported.
Discord
This post on Discord shows a user in a channel posting various Holocaust denial videos from BitChute, the extremist-friendly video sharing site.
Steam
A user who posted on the community boards of the gaming platform Steam wrote at length on various Holocaust denialism texts and resources. This discussion occurred under the WWII themed game War Mongrels, due to be released in 2021.
Roblox
The gaming platform Roblox has numerous filters in place for discouraging users from searching for Holocaust denial content. This piece of content, named "Defaced Synagogue," circumvents filters for "Holohoax" or "Holocaust denial" by using the word "synagogue" in its title instead of more overt signals of Holocaust denial.