"genocide denial" is typically a meaningless term these days
It's funny now that Putin called the persecution in Donbas by the Ukrainian army a "genocide" we can actually call them deniers back
"but Putin is literally Hitler and anything he says is a lie"
Supports literal Nazis. Insists Nazis didn't do anything bad. Reminds you of some group?
USA: looking at me wrong is genocide!
Me: uhhh no?
USA: Wow what a horrible GENOCIDE DENIER. STOP DENYING GENOCIDE.
Originally ‘genocide’ did not refer to literal massacres, but actions that inhibited nationalism, hence why some people now say ‘cultural genocide’ to clarify that they are not referring to violence. To further complicate matters, sometimes the ethnic aspect is overlooked completely, and it becomes a crude synonym for ‘mass killing’. It’s an ambiguous term with a great deal of emotional baggage, which is why anticommunists like overusing it so much.
I know that some indigenous groups recommend using the term, but in the mainstream ‘genocide’ is used very selectively and rarely in reference to the people that the Anglosphere oppressed, so I still prefer using other terminology.
Populicide, mass killing, mass murder, (mass) slaughter, systematic killing, and massacres.
ETA: replaced a word.