A caricature of Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg in the German newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung has drawn charges of anti-Semitism against the artist and newspaper.
As a comment on Facebook’s acquisition of WhatsApp, announced last week, artist Burkhard Mohr depicted the 29-year-old Jewish entrepreneur as an octopus grasping at computers around him. One of his tentacles holds the logo of Whatsapp. reaching, which he purchased last week.
With its exaggerated features, including a long nose and thick lips, the cartoon octopus resembles in more ways than one the cartoons published by the rabidly anti-Semitic Julius Streicher in his Nazi-era Der Stuermer magazine. The caption read, “’Krake Facebook’ – Facebook Octopus and Zuckerberg Octopus.”
The Simon Wiesenthal Center has protested the depiction, but Mohr denied harboring any anti-Semitic sentiments.
However, Mohr has replaced the caricature of Zuckerberg’s face with a gaping maw, and the newspaper tweeted on Monday, “We apologize for the cartoon.”
Zuckerberg was raised Jewish but now describes himself as an atheist.