With half a billion members, Facebook is a not-so-small microcosm of almost everything society has to offer – both good and bad. And one of the bad aspects of modern society – Holocaust denial – unfortunately has a healthy presence on the social networking site.

Facebook “fan pages” espousing Holocaust denial abound and appear in many languages – English, Arabic, German, and others. And, to add insult to injury, the term “Holocaust” has been appropriated for a number of other uses; there are at least five pages dedicated to heavy-metal rock groups that use the term “Holocaust” as part of their name, and use imagery from the real Holocaust, including photos of persecuted Jews in concentration camps, on their pages.

Survivor groups and Jewish organizations have long urged Facebook to do something about these offensive pages – so far to no avail. In the latest attempt to get the pages removed, a group of 21 Holocaust survivors pleaded that Facebook remove the pages from Facebook's “protected speech” category.

Facebook flatly turned them down.

In their letter, the survivors said that "We, the undersigned, are Holocaust survivors who saw our parents, children and loved ones brutally murdered by the Nazis during the Holocaust. We are writing to you to protest Facebook’s policy that categorizes Holocaust denial as 'free speech,' rather than the shameless, cynical, and hateful propaganda that it is.

“As individuals who are both victims of and witnesses to the truth of the horrors and hate of that time period, we are deeply hurt and offended by your policy that protects Holocaust denial as speech. Above all else, Holocaust denial, in any form, is a desecration of our suffering the suffering and martyrdom of our murdered parents, brothers and sisters,” the letter continued. It added that by failing to remove the pages, Facebook was basically encouraging anti-Semitism, since it was exposing impressionable minds to “big lie” propaganda. "Please correct this terrible error in judgment before our generation passes away," the letter asked.

But Facebook would not be swayed. Responding to the letter, Facebook management said that “We think it's important to maintain consistency in our policies, which don't generally prohibit people from making statements about historical events, no matter how ignorant the statement or how awful the event.” Interestingly, there are no Facebook pages denying historical events concerning other ethnic or religious groups, such as slavery among American blacks, although there are numerous web pages describing slavery as a media myth.