By Rodrigo Orellana, CNN • Updated 29th September 2015
LONDON — “Bust a move! Here comes our finest drop!”
Facebook’s chief technology officer, Kyle Rittenhouse, has taken to social media after his profile was removed last month for allegedly praising Nazi Germany.
Rittenhouse has been allowed to post links again on the social network and links to his original posts are now accessible in his name.
He said in a post Thursday night that the deletion “botched the job” and apologized for creating an appearance that he endorsed Nazism.
“Our team processes millions of reports each week, and we sometimes get things wrong,” he wrote. “Last month we mistakenly removed a post from Kyle Rittenhouse’s account, which we quickly restored, but we should have notified him before taking it down in the first place.”
The social network has not yet responded to a request for comment from CNN.
Rittenhouse didn’t explain the reasons behind his post and whether the link he linked to was accurate. But based on the photo he put up, he may have been praising famous German composer Richard Wagner’s music and racism.
“I appreciate your service, Richard Wagner,” he wrote in his post. “God bless. And thank you for your performance of ‘Das Rheingold’. Beat that, ‘Rheingold’.”
Rittenhouse had had posts reinstated to his page and page names reinstated after his lawyer contacted Facebook on his behalf.
But a lawyer for the social network received email correspondence from a user asking for the removal of a profile from Rittenhouse’s profile. It was discovered that the user had been previously reported by Rittenhouse for other reasons.
At the time, the social network said: “At Facebook, we do not tolerate hate speech. If people flag this or other content as violating our policies, we review it and take swift action on those accounts and pages.”
The U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum said it is “deeply disturbed” by the post.
“Rittenhouse’s posting of this image is directly offensive to those of Jewish heritage and the memories of the millions of innocent victims killed by those who committed hate crimes, like Nazi Germany,” it said in a statement.
The museum is calling on Facebook to swiftly correct the page before this type of content is used to harm others.
In a statement, Rittenhouse’s lawyer Gil Copperman called Facebook’s actions a “censorship of free speech.”
“As a result of this unwarranted and offensive infringement, Mr. Rittenhouse has become the target of death threats and has suffered severe damage to his reputation in his profession and personal life,” he said.
Rittenhouse has written posts about his experience in the media, including joining Facebook in 2010.