Facebook Inc will ban posts that deny the Holocaust in a reversal of a long-held and controversial policy.

Chief Executive Officer Mark Zuckerberg, who has been lobbied by civil rights groups such as the Anti-Defamation League to make the change, said he is concerned about the "current state of the world” and hate-based violence.

"I’ve struggled with the tension between standing for free expression and the harm caused by minimising or denying the horror of the Holocaust,” Zuckerberg said in a Facebook post. "My own thinking has evolved as I’ve seen data showing an increase in anti-Semitic violence.”

Facebook said its decision was supported by the documented evidence of a rise in anti-Semitism globally and "the alarming level of ignorance about the Holocaust, especially among young people.” According to a recent survey of adults aged 18-39 in the United States, almost a quarter said they believed the Holocaust was a myth, that it had been exaggerated or they weren’t sure, Facebook’s head of content policy, Monika Bickert, said in a separate post.

Jonathan Greenblatt, CEO of the ADL, said he’s pushed Facebook to make the change for years. It’s "a big deal,” Greenblatt wrote on Twitter. "Glad it finally happened.”

Zuckerberg was highly criticised in 2018 after he used the Holocaust as an example of denialism that may be wrong but should be permitted to exist on Facebook.

"I don’t believe that our platform should take that down because I think there are things that different people get wrong,” Zuckerberg said in an interview with Kara Swisher at Recode. Zuckerberg, who is Jewish, quickly apologised, saying he personally finds "Holocaust denial deeply offensive, and I absolutely didn’t intend to defend the intent of people who deny that,” he said at the time.

Facebook said on Oct 12 that beginning later this year it will direct people looking for terms associated with the Holocaust or its denial to credible information outside of Facebook.

 - Bloomberg