Today, Monday, Facebook decided to block any content that denies or distorts the Holocaust.

The World Jewish Congress and the American Jewish Committee were quick to praise the move.

"We have long removed messages calling for hate crimes and mass killings, including the Holocaust," Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg said on his page, "but as anti-Semitism escalates, we will expand our base to include blocking any content that denies or distorts the Holocaust as well."

Zuckerberg, who is Jewish, added, "I have made strenuous efforts to reconcile support for freedom of expression with the harm caused by the minimization or denial of the Holocaust."

"My thinking evolved when I saw data showing an increase in violence due to anti-Semitism, and our broader policies on hate speech also evolved."

Facebook said it would direct, starting late this year, those looking for terms related to the Holocaust or its denial to reliable information away from Facebook.

A tribute to the decision

Commenting on the decision, the World Jewish Congress praised the move and said in a statement, "We have called on Facebook for years to remove Holocaust denial content from its platform."

This summer, civil rights groups organized a massive boycott of Facebook ads in an attempt to pressure social media companies to take action against hate speech on their platforms.

"I'm glad this finally happened," Jonathan Greenblatt, chief executive of the Anti-Defamation League, one of the organizers of the boycott campaign, said on Twitter.

Facebook said in a post on its blog today that it cited a recent survey that found that a large percentage of American adults believed the Holocaust was a myth and that it was exaggerated, or that they are not sure it happened.