J.K. Rowling Accused By Twitter Users Around The Globe Of Being A 'Holocaust Denier' In Apparent Streisand Effect

Yesterday morning, British Jewish journalist Rivkah Brown tweeted, "On 13 March I tweeted that JK Rowling 'is a Holocaust denier.' That allegation was false and offensive. I have deleted it and apologise to JK Rowling."

As a result, "J.K. Rowling Is A Holocaust Denier" is now trending on Twitter / X.

Here's what happened: On March 13th, Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling was going through yet another day of arguing with Twitter users about trans people, when one user asked, "The Nazis burned books on trans healthcare and research. Why are you so desperate to uphold their ideology around gender?"

In response, Rowling voiced incredulity, suggesting the user find a source for that claim and implied they had invented it in a "fever dream."

There are sources that support the claim that Nazis burned books on trans healthcare and research. In 2022, a German court acknowledged that trans people were persecuted during the Nazi era. Specifically, the work of Berlin's Institute of Sexual Science chair Magnus Hirschfeld, which included research on trans people, was looted and burned by Nazi students in 1933.

Upon being presented with this information, Rowling then retorted that there's no proof Nazis burned all of Germany's research on transgenderism, though no one had made that claim previously in the discussion.

It appears Rivkah Brown called Rowling a "Holocaust Denier" as a result of this exchange.

Part of the definition of "Holocaust Denial" adopted by the U.S. State Department includes "discourse and propaganda that deny the historical reality and the extent of the extermination of the Jews by the Nazis and their accomplices during World War II."

Brown was not the only one to accuse Rowling of Holocaust denial, but she did draw Rowling's attention, and on March 14th, Rowling tweeted, "I'd be delighted to meet you in court, Rivkah, to discuss holocaust denial."

Brown's retraction of her accusation yesterday seemed to be confirmation that Rowling had threatened legal action against Brown to many online and that she potentially utilized the U.K.'s strict libel laws to buoy her threat.

Put simply, the U.K. places the "burden of proof" in a libel case on the person making the claim — in this case, should Rowling have brought the case to court, Brown would have to prove that Rowling engaged in Holocaust denial to win the case. This makes the U.K. an attractive place for people to sue for libel.

Would the case be tried in, say, the U.S., Rowling would have to prove she is not a Holocaust denier in order to win the libel case. The U.K.'s libel laws have been criticized globally for giving too much power to the powerful in libel cases.

Unfortunately for Rowling, Brown's retraction only amplified accusations that the author is a Holocaust denier on social media, to the point where "Rowling Is A Holocaust Denier" trended on Twitter for two days. Many users repeated the claim while flaunting that they were not citizens of the U.K. and were therefore exempt from the nation's libel laws.

Rowling has yet to respond to her name trending on Twitter in such a negative light. On March 14th, she issued a statement saying the claim was a "new low" from her critics, calling it "baseless and disgusting."