An imposing presence: the deniers have three times more sites than their detractors in the world

Marianne (French leftist weekly)
October 26, 1998

Thanks mainly to Internet, the wind is turning in favor of historical revisionism. “For the first time for twenty years, I have not had any more a lawsuit in progress,” says Robert Faurisson, the cantor of French denial. Because of the extension of the mother of all networks these last years in France, the Gayssot law, which pushed back in the marginality the deniers of crimes against humanity, seems indeed null and void. The deniers benefit today from a contradiction of nature between a transnational media (Internet) and a legislation which remains confined at the borders. Revisionism is thriving in such a virtual and legal “No man’s land.” These sites, while leading astray the fight for “the freedom of expression,” have been working out a concerted strategy of the links among militants which makes it possible to internationalize their speech.

[…]

Subsequently, the deniers must occupy the media space of the Net. They benefit already from a privileged place, since the number of their sites is three times larger than that of their detractors. Being over-represented and related to one another, they manage to multiply their audience on the Net by organizing the links judiciously. Two advantages: they inflate artificially the volume of connections on their sites and they create ideological links among the sites of several continents. Thus can one circulate from Radio Islam (this anti-Zionist and negationist site, installed in Sweden and created by a Moroccan opponent, stands in particular as the platform of expression for French revisionists, of whom? Robert Faurisson, Roger Garaudy …) to European Foundation for the free historical examination (in Belgium), via the Association of Old Amateurs of War and Holocaust Accounts (AAARGH, in France). And although these links are only virtual initially, they in the long term support a structural bringing together between various mobilities which are instrumental for denial in order to open the way to a true “Revisionist International.” Finally, the Internet allows extreme right or extreme left groups to addict themselves to “Shoah business” by collecting some gifts or by selling some by-products of all kinds (banned books, deniers’ reviews or newspapers, etc).

Tristan MENDES-FRANCE and Michaël PRAZAN