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Anne Frank Center asks Facebook to remove Holocaust denial pages
- creaghpatr 8y agoThe 'Anne Frank' Center needs to be put into context here: https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2017/04/anne-frank-center/524055/ https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2017/04/anne-fr... >With just its famous name and a savvy social-media strategy, the Anne Frank Center has transformed into a putative authority on anti-Semitism and American politics. But it’s not at all clear the organization speaks for anybody other than its own leaders—not Holocaust scholars, Anne Frank’s family, or the Jewish community. Ultimately, by politicizing Anne Frank, the group may undermine her legacy.
- patrickg_zill 8y agoThey are just a bunch of grifters IMHO. They have no connection to the Frank family nor to any other aspect of the Anne Frank story. It is the same as if I started the Nikola Tesla Research Center (I have no connection to Tesla).
- gnu8 8y agoOr a car company?
- patrickg_zill 8y agoTesla isn't (aside from the EV evangelism) trying to speak in the public square as a moral authority by using someone else's famous name.
- stronglikedan 8y ago> Denying the Holocaust causes harm. I'm not sure I agree with this line, but perhaps I can be convinced. The way I see it, with all the world's information in everyone's pocket, blindly taking random social media posts at face value is what causes the harm.
- pduszak 8y agoThe authors of the page clearly have an agenda. We all know the Holocaust occurred, so why let a page challenging or attempting to rewrite history exist? You're delusional if you don't think there are people who get all their news from their filter bubbled Facebook timeline.
- 8bithero 8y agoNot arguing for or against, just something to think about: By that same token, they should also shut down any FlatEarth pages too... But then if we do that, where is the line and who decides it?
- stronglikedan 8y ago> You're delusional if you don't think there are people who get all their news from their filter bubbled Facebook timeline. I'm not sure how you inferred that I don't think that when that's pretty much what I directly implied, and that is what causes the harm - self imposed ignorance.
- t3soro 8y agoAnne Frank wrote in her diary with a ball-point pen which was not even invented yet. Something to hide perhaps?
- bittcto 8y agoBallpoint was invented in 1888, around 40 years earlier: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ballpoint_pen https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ballpoint_pen
- patrickg_zill 8y agoWikipedia seems to indicate that commercial production started in 1943, in Argentina.
- debacle 8y agoIs the insinuation that Nazis wrote Anne Frank's diary?
- patrickg_zill 8y agoNo, not at all.
- t3soro 8y agoThe suggestion is that it was edited posthumously, perhaps embellished by her father. These sorts of facts all apparently fall under the banishable offense of Holocaust denial, (a sacred religious belief), which is why the whole suggestion of making historical topics for discussion illegal is insane.
- patrickg_zill 8y agoNot really a fan of the NYT but this article seems to lay out most of the issues around the book. The diary as originally presented to the public, was edited by Otto Frank: https://www.nytimes.com/1989/06/08/books/an-authenticated-edition-of-anne-frank-s-diary.html https://www.nytimes.com/1989/06/08/books/an-authenticated-ed...
- josh_fyi 8y agoNote that the "Anne Frank Center" is a political advocacy organization that simply uses the name, but has no real connection to the person beyond that.
- debacle 8y agoTo the people who will say that Facebook is a private company, the first amendment doesn't apply, etc: I get it, you're right. These affronts to freedom of expression are concerning. It's important to allow Holocaust deniers, Sandy hook deniers, 9/11 truthers, anti-vaxxers, Christian Scientists, flat earthers, etc to have a platform, for them and for us. You can't protected people from stupid ideas, and more and more we are just forcing these people into echo chambers. Ideas need to see the light of day, especially bad ones. The more discourse and dialog (and not insults) we share, the more quickly misaligned beliefs will fade.
- UncleMeat 8y agoIf we truly have a marketplace of ideas then shitty ideas should be able to fail in the market. Denialism has already seen the light of day. Why must we enforce that it continues to see the light of day forever?
- debacle 8y agoBecause we are a great, enlightened, quickly broadening and quickly advancing society that is inoculated from the chattering of small minds.
- dwaltrip 8y agoThe usual argument is: The process that decides what should be censored might easily be used to squash valuable and important minority dissent in the future.
- krapp 8y ago>If we truly have a marketplace of ideas then shitty ideas should be able to fail in the market. This implies that the marketplace of ideas optimizes for truth, which may not be the case. >Why must we enforce that it continues to see the light of day forever? Either it lives in the shadows forever, or the light of day forever, but it never goes away. With each succeeding generation as history becomes more abstract, denialism and revisionism becomes easier to justify and accept. After all, why are there more people who believe the Moon landing was a hoax, now, than believed it when the event was recent, living memory? Because it's no more real to modern people than fiction. The same effect applies to the Holocaust. History becomes myth, myth becomes farce. We forget the lessons of the past and we're doomed to repeat them. The only thing the suppression of shitty ideas does is make the wheel turn faster.
- jedberg 8y agoIt’s important to note that most holocaust deniers don’t actually think the holocaust didn’t happen. They just feel like Jews “get a free pass because of it” and want to cause problems for Jews as a response to that.
- growlist 8y ago'The Holocaust Industry: Reflections on the Exploitation of Jewish Suffering is a 2000 book by Norman G. Finkelstein, in which the author argues that the American Jewish establishment exploits the memory of the Nazi Holocaust for political and financial gain, as well as to further the interests of Israel.[1] According to Finkelstein, this "Holocaust industry" has corrupted Jewish culture and the authentic memory of the Holocaust.' https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Holocaust_Industry https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Holocaust_Industry
- antisthenes 8y agoBut can that really be classified as Holocaust Denial though? It seems like you could write any similar book about racism or sexism or any other form of persecution and argue how it corrupts the authentic struggles of that minority or group. It is related, but fairly tangential to denying specific historic facts.
- lobotryas 8y agoBy people who would do anything to discredit such a book? Sure.