Facebook has finally approved a long-standing demand, which seeks to ban any content that denies or distorts the Holocaust, the genocide of Nazi Germany and its collaborators committed against Jews during World War II.

Faceobok founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg, in a post Monday announcing the policy change, said he "fought between the tension over free speech and the damage done by minimizing or denying the horror of the Holocaust."

"My thinking has evolved since I saw data showing an increase in anti-Semitic violence, as well as our broader hate speech policies," Zuckerberg said.

Starting this year, Facebook will direct users seeking terms related to the Holocaust or its denial to credible information from third-party sources, according to Monika Bickert, who oversees Facebook's content policy.

Facebook's announcement that it is banning content that denies the Holocaust comes after it was targeted by campaigns like Stop Hate for Profit launched by groups like NAACP, Common Sense Media and the Anti-Defamation League. The initiative was joined by hundreds of companies that announced they would suspend Facebook ads in order to encourage the company to block hate speech on the platform.

Source: Variety