Randi Zuckerberg, the sister to Facebook boss Mark Zuckerberg, has defended her brother after he clarified his position about Holocaust deniers on social media and faced fierce criticism afterward.

Mark Zuckerberg, who is Jewish, said in an interview with Recode that Facebook posts denying the Holocaust took place would not be removed automatically.

He said he thinks that there are things 'that different people get wrong,' and that he does not think they are 'intentionally' getting it wrong.

Randi spoke to CNN Money in a written statement Thursday and said: 'As a leader in the Jewish community, and someone who has worked at the ground floor of social media, I felt a responsibility to weigh in.'

The entrepreneur and former director of market development for Facebook backed up her brother's controversial comments.

Randi Zuckerberg (pictured right in Texas in March) defended her brother's decision to refuse the removal of Holocaust denier posts. Mark Zuckerberg is pictured left Paris, France in May

This undated photo shows Randi and Mark Zuckerberg. Randi said in a statement: 'Banning Holocaust deniers from social media will not make them go away.' Mark was criticized after he clarified his position on the matter

'Banning Holocaust deniers from social media will not make them go away,' she said. Those bent on lying, sowing misunderstanding, and breeding hate will never be truly silenced. Let this remind us why we need our Jewish institutions more now than ever.'

Randi's statement further said in part: 'Unfortunately, when we give a voice to everyone, we give it to people who use that voice for good and to people who abuse that voice. Speak to a million people and you'll get a million different definitions of who fits into which of those categories.

'Organizations doing impactful work now have more powerful tools than ever before, yet the nasty dark underbelly that exists right beneath the surface has access to those exact same tools.

'While it can be appalling to see what some people say, I don't think living in a sterile, Stepford-like online community where we simply press the delete button on the ugly reality of how people feel is helpful either.'

Following Mark's comments, the Anti-Defamation League said that Facebook has a 'moral and ethical obligation' not to allow people to disseminate Holocaust denial on its platform.

Mark later sent an email to the Recode interviewer, Kara Swisher, attempting to expand on what he had said.

Mark is seen in this undated photo at a DCMS select committee on fake news. Mark said Holocaust denier posts would not be removed automatically from Facebook

'I personally find Holocaust denial deeply offensive, and I absolutely didn't intend to defend the intent of people who deny that,' Zuckerberg wrote in the email, which was published by Recode.

Facebook has struggled over the past year to tackle the global spread of rumours and political misinformation and explain what it will and will not allow on its service after several high-profile mistakes.

Hours after Mark's interview, the company announced it is going to start taking down misinformation that could lead to violence.

The company's new policy will begin in Sri Lanka and later expand to Burma. In both countries, human rights groups have attacked Facebook for an inadequate response to hate speech and the incitement of anti-Muslim violence.

In April, Facebook announced new public guidelines mirroring the rules its reviewers use to decide whether posts run foul of prohibitions against harassment, violent threats, explicit sexuality and other forbidden categories.

Facebook had previously shied away from providing this level of detail about its 'community guidelines'.

The portion of the Wednesday interview was about hate speech and its potential effects in regions of strife.

Ms Swisher told Zuckerberg that in the case of Holocaust deniers, their remarks may be intentionally wrong.

Zuckerberg responded by saying that 'it's hard to impugn intent and to understand the intent'.

The goal of Facebook is not to prevent someone from saying something untrue, Zuckerberg said, but to stop fake news from spreading across the social network.

If something is deemed to be fake, he said, it might remain on the site but it would be pushed down in the news feed so fewer people would see it.