Facebook's reluctance to delete Holocaust denial groups is nothing new, but has come under heavy criticism in recent days. Brian Cuban, a lawyer and brother of Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban, recently published on his blog an asking him to shut down groups like "Holocaust: A series of lies," "Holocaust is a Holohoax" and "Holocaust is a myth." In his letter, Cuban argues "those who promote the fringe revisionist theory of Holocaust Denial" are inciting hatred, which is against Facebook's Terms of Service. According to users may not "post content that is hateful, threatening, pornographic, or that contains nudity or graphic or gratuitous violence."

Facebook counters Cuban's argument by saying that while it finds Holocaust denial abhorrent, the groups do not cross the line from genocide denial to hatred. Schnitt pointed out that Facebook has in the past eliminated groups involved in hate speech such as "Isle of Man KKK," which was removed because it threatened violence against foreigners on the tiny island off the coast of England. Cuban dismisses Facebook's reasoning arguing "Holocaust Deniers are overwhelmingly antisemitic [sic]" and that you cannot separate the inherent racism of the group members from the group itself.

Countless arguments can be made about the immorality of allowing Holocaust denial to flourish online and the serious problems of anti-Semitism and hatred. However, looking at this issue from a purely tech-based point of view, Holocaust denial groups on Facebook show yet again the social network's inability to fully understand and deal with complex issues.

Facebook's premise that it wants to promote free speech is commendable; however, the social network fails to take into account other core values of Facebook users -- not to mention the company itself. The fact is that for the vast majority of Facebook users, denying the historical fact of the extermination of 6 million Jewish people and millions of other so-called undesirables by Nazi Germany is abhorrent. Facebook failed to realize how strong this core belief was when formulating its policy on Holocaust denial, and that is part of the reason it is running into problems now.

The failure to understand another core value of its user base, privacy, gave Facebook headaches in 2007 with the now-defunct . The idea behind was to allow users to share, within Facebook, reports of purchases and other actions made on sites outside of the social network. That basic concept was, on its face, not a bad idea since the whole point of Facebook is to share information. However, Facebook failed to take into account the natural desire of its users to keep some actions and purchases private and to have the power to chose when to share (and with whom) and when not to.