Holocaust Denial Online

Abstract

Holocaust denial has long been ignored by much of the academic community to prevent directing much attention toward it. To try and garner legitimacy, the leaders of the Holocaust denial movement constructed a pseudoacademic framework to promote Holocaust denial as an alternative yet viable view. In the last twenty years Holocaust denial has spread this framework on the Internet with success, as antisemitic works like the Journal for Historical Review are now accessible by an exponentially larger audience at a fraction of the cost. Shortly following the appearance of Holocaust denial online, websites specifically devoted to responding to and refuting Holocaust denial followed in their wake. These websites, while useful archives of material, lack the necessary structure and design to engage with the new mass of Holocaust deniers that have growth out of the deniers’ “colonization” of the Internet. Ultimately, a new strategy must be devised to properly challenge the rise of Holocaust denial online, especially as younger generations are coming online earlier and social media allows for the virtually effortless spread of information.Keywords: 1977 Human Rights Act, 1975 Racial Discrimination Act, antisemitism, Deborah Lipstadt, Ernst Zündel, Frederick Toben, Hate Speech Laws, Holocaust denial, Internet, Nizkor