The Web of Hate Lance Schwarz Brian Boyd Kevin Callahan

The Problem The Internet has become a new breeding ground for all sorts of new ideas. With the good always comes the bad. In this case were talking about sites on the Internet set up with only the intentions of creating and spreading HATE.

What Is a Hate Group A hate group is an organization of individuals who believe that another group of individuals, be it ethnic or religious or both, is wrong or evil. The hate group prides itself on the common background of its members who usually share the same religious views as well as ethnicity. Many hate groups advocate White Supremacy, Racist Music, Racist Skinheads, Neo-Nazism, Anti-Semitism, Holocaust Denial, Christian Identity, Black Racism, Anti- Gay, Anti-Christian, Anti-Muslim, and Anti-Arab sentiments.

Our Definition of Hate A negative opinion formed on the sole basis of ones race, religion, mental and/or physical characteristics that are beyond their control is hateful content.

Can the Government Regulate Hate? The First Amendment states, Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof, or abridging the freedom of speech or of the press, or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievance Broad interpretation of this law makes government regulation almost impossible.

Why is Hateful Material Protected? As Americans we treasure our Freedom of Speech and will always fight to preserve it. However, as much as we love to be able to represent ourselves for positive causes other citizens of this country may choose to abuse this right for malicious causes, such as spreading messages of hate.

Who is to be Held Responsible for What We View? As adults we must be responsible for the content that we view on the Internet and the content that our children view on the net. It has been upheld in the court that the government can not censor the Internet, such was the case with the Loudon County library being forced to pull filters from the web browsers on their computers.

Legal Responsibility Whether the makers of a web site can be held liable for any threats made on the site is a major issue were facing. Liability: the level of responsibility that one has for ones actions.

Cases Dealing with Liability In 1998, the neo-Nazi group Alpha located in Pennsylvania made very specific threats toward a fair-housing specialist and a member of the Pennsylvania Human Rights Commission. While the captions and pictures were removed from the web site, state attorneys proceeded with an injunction to bar these sites from similar activity in the future.

Cases Continued... A student at the University of California- Irvine sent numerous s containing death threats to 59 Asian college students. He became the first individual convicted of an online hate crime.

Hate Speech vs. Threats A threatening private message sent over the Internet to an individual, or even a public message displayed on a web site describing intent to commit acts of racially motivated violence, can be prosecuted under the law. Similarly, harassing speech is not constitutionally protected because the speech in question usually amounts to illegal acts, not just speech. Group libel

How Do We Stop Hate From Being Spread? Private companies and citizens must step up the fight on the economic and educational fronts. Many groups have stepped up their efforts recently as hate has continued to spread on the Internet in an attempt to make it difficult for these messages to be so easily displayed to innocent citizens as the constitution would allow.

Many groups such as the ADL and NAACP are buying up domain names with racial slurs or derogatory meanings to make it harder to find web sites containing hateful content. Therefore if you were to type in a slur like the one above youd be transported to a web site dedicated to equality.

Anti-Hate Web Sites Going along with making it harder to find hate on the Internet we can create more sites aimed at teaching the truth about hate groups and their messages. More and more anti-hate sites are popping up all over the web, so when you search the query hate now you may get 2,000 hits, but only a 1/4 of them will be actual hate sites.

Filtering Software There is filtering software, such as Hate Filter which is made by anti-hate advocates and distributed free of charge to anybody that wants it. This software blocks sites containing hateful material from being viewed on your computer.

Conclusion/Our Opinion It is unlawful to prevent web sites containing hateful material from being viewed on the Internet. A majority of the population does not want to see this material or have their children see this material and can have it filtered out. Also, many private organizations are putting forth their best efforts to end hate on the Internet by offering free filter software.

Conclusion/Our Opinion cont. While this form of speech is protected, we do not support it. However, despite the highly offensive nature of hate group websites, the sites should not be censored because the right to free speech must be preserved.