Zuckerberg courts controversy again; this time with ‘Holocaust denial’ remark

Washington, July 19: Months after his harrowing experience in the Cambridge Analytica (CA) scandal, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg found himself in the middle of a new controversy recently by saying in an interview that he found the denial of Holocaust "deeply offensive" but didn't feel convinced that such content should be banned.

The 34-year-old Jewish entrepreneur and philanthropist, however, tried to roll back his remarks just hours after his interview given to Recode. During the conversation, Zuckerberg said that there are things "that different people get wrong" and added that he didn't think that they were getting it wrong "intentionally".

Zuckerberg's remarks invited criticism from different quarters, including the Anti-Defamation League, which said the social networking site has a "moral and ethical obligation" not to allow people spread denial of Holocaust on its platform, AP reported. The Facebook CEO said offensive content is not necessarily banned unless it harms anyone, the report added.

Zuckerberg, facing the sting of criticism over his remark, wrote an email to his interviewer Kara Swisher clarifying his remark on Holocaust denial. He wrote: "I personally find Holocaust denial deeply offensive, and I absolutely didn't intend to defend the intent of people who deny that."

'I am the one to be fired'

Zuckerberg, who spoke on various other issues during the interview, also took the blame for the CA scandal saying if anyone had to be fired for it, it should be him. The man had to testify before the US Congress and European Parliament earlier this year in the wake of the CA scandal in which a British data-mining firm allegedly influenced outcome of a number of elections around the world by crunching data obtained from Facebook.