Holocaust Denial and the Regulation of Antisemitic Speech in Europe

From Criminal Law to Platform Governance. With Anna Pingen. Chaired by Stephanie Share. How should democratic societies respond to antisemitic speech, and what role should the law play in that response? In an era where such speech circulates at scale online, the question has become both more urgent and more complex. The criminalisation of Holocaust denial in Europe is often treated as a self-evident response to historical atrocity. Yet Holocaust denial has long occupied a contested space at the intersection of antisemitism, memory, and free expression. Several European states, including Germany and France, criminalised Holocaust denial in the decades following the Second World War, reflecting distinct legal traditions and historical experiences.This talk uses the Germany–France comparison as a lens through which to examine a broader transformation in how Europe regulates antisemitic speech. The rise of online platforms has exposed the structural limits of criminal law as the primary enforcement mechanism: prosecution is slow, jurisdictionally fragmented, and often ill-suited to the scale of digital hate. Europe’s response has therefore been institutional as much as legal. The Digital Services Act and the integrated Code of Conduct on Countering Illegal Hate Speech Online+ signal a shift toward platform governance and systemic-risk regulation - a framework that reshapes responsibility without resolving the underlying fragmentation of substantive law across European states.The talk argues that Europe is moving from a primarily criminal-law response to antisemitic speech toward a hybrid model in which criminal prohibitions, platform obligations, and soft-law instruments coexist, but do not yet form a fully coherent regulatory framework. Anna Pingen is a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Freiburg (Chair of Criminal Law and Criminal Procedure) and the Max Planck Institute for the Study of Crime, Security and Law in Freiburg, Germany. Her research focuses on comparative criminal law, European and international criminal law, and transitional justice, with a particular interest in the regulation of speech, including antisemitic speech and Holocaust denial.Her doctoral research examined criminal offencesrelated to speech and the ways in which law addresses speech with potentially harmful effects.She has taught courses on hate speech regulation in Europe and on transitional justice in post-Holocaust Germany as adjunct faculty at Gratz College and is a co-editor of the eucrim journal, a forum for European criminal law. About the chair Dr. Stéphanie Share is a historian specializing on Holocaust denial and distortion. She holds a Ph.D. in Contemporary History from France. She is currently a research scholar at the Comper Center for the Study of Antisemitism and Racism at the University of Haifa and is affiliated with the London Centre for the Study of Contemporary Antisemitism and ISGAP in New York. Since 2008, she has also taught at the International School for Holocaust Studies at Yad Vashem, focusing particularly on Holocaust denial and distortion. She is the author of two books (in French) on Holocaust denial and is currently working on an English-language book on Holocaust denial and distortion under contract with Routledge. As chair, Stephanie will briefly address the evolution of Holocaust denial and distortion within contemporary antisemitic discourse, particularly in digital environments. She will also discuss the growing challenges posed by misinformation, radicalization, and online dissemination. In connection with Dr. Pingen’s presentation, Stephanie will address the importance — and the limits — of legal and regulatory responses to antisemitic speech and Holocaust denial in democratic societies. She will also touch on the tension between freedom of speech and the regulation of hate speech.