(Jewish Group) Children researching the Holocaust online are as likely to find denial as genuine...

[Behind the Aegis]

Children researching the Holocaust online are as likely to find denial as genuine history

At this year’s NASUWT teachers’ conference, delegates voiced their concerns over the rise in pupils encountering far-right material online whilst conducting research for their homework. One teacher suggested that schoolchildren using the internet to search for information about the Holocaust are as likely to find articles written by Holocaust deniers as they are to find genuine historical accounts. Another warned that children’s access to social media and smartphones means they are “more at risk of being exposed to extremist material than ever before”.

Holocaust denial has existed since the 1940s and some antisemites dedicate years of their lives to producing pseudo-academic books and articles to supposedly disprove that the Holocaust happened. In the digital age, the tone of contemporary denial has changed: younger Holocaust deniers dismiss the Holocaust, mock it, or even ironically celebrate it. Holocaust denial, and all manners of extremist content, sadly remain accessible at the click of a button, as Karen Pollock CBE, the chief executive of the Holocaust Educational Trust has warned.

Antisemitism in the UK is at a modern record high. According to the CST there were 2,255 antisemitic incidents in the UK in 2021, the highest number recorded in a single year. This carries through to the digital realm, where Holocaust denial is just one of the many ways online antisemitism presents itself.

Following the rise in Israel-Palestine tensions in May 2021, the Anti-Defamation League documented a disturbing rise in antisemitic content on multiple social media platforms. In October 2021, a Hope Not Hate report found that a new generation of ‘younger’ social media platforms, such as TikTok, are introducing people to antisemitic ideas they would be unlikely to encounter elsewhere.

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