Holocaust denier is often used as a straw man of someone that estimate the exact figure to something lower than consensus. In Austria and France etc. the state throw people in jail for that. Like a Tiananmen Square policy in reverse.

Yeah, but there's also a very very close to zero percent chance that people labelled as "deniers" are actually saying the Holocaust never happened. The sibling comment seems to reinforce this intuition and in fact the article groups "deniers" with people who "distort" the Holocaust. That would appear to encompass any historian who attempted to disagree with any aspect of the historical record at all, in any way.

How many people have you ever met, or even heard of directly, that claim the Holocaust never happened? I can honestly say I couldn't name a single one, not even in places like the USA where they'd be able to make such speech under the First Amendment (not on Facebook). I've only ever heard about such people indirectly, via what censors claim about them.

Now how many people do you see who throw around the term "Nazi" like it's a schoolyard insult? That happens every day. I see people being compared to Nazis all the time, right here on HN which claims to have strong moderation.

The likelihood of this sort of censorship being applied to people who literally deny the Holocaust is tiny. Facebook have spent 2020 routinely censoring scientists who don't agree with the WHO, even though the WHO changes its mind every five minutes. Many of the people in high places in these companies seem to believe any disagreement with authority is worthy of censorship. They are not free speech absolutists who make an exception for truly dire cases.

The funny thing is that everyone in the West denies the Holocaust happened to the Slavs (5 million Slavs to 6 million Jews). Even though Hitler said time and time again that Slavs were to be exterminated from all areas west of the Urals.

So when are we banning everyone who says only 6 million people died in the holocaust?