The rapid expansion of hate speech on the Web raises similar problems and controversies.
The rapid expansion of hate speech on the Web raises similar problems and controversies. Many groups such as white supremacists and anarchists have websites that advocate their particular point of view. Some of these sites are blatantly anti-Semitic, and others are dominated by Holocaust revisionists who claim that the Holocaust never happened. On occasion these sites can be especially virulent and outrageous, such as the website of the Charlemagne Hammerskins. The first scene reveals a man disguised in a ski mask bearing a gun and standing next to a swastika. The site has this ominous warning for its visitors: “Be assured, we still have one-way tickets to Auschwitz.”
Some hate websites take the form of computer games such as Doom and Castle Wolfenstein that have been constructed to include blacks, Jews, or homosexuals as targets of violence. In one animated game, the Dancing Baby, which became a popular television phenomenon, has been depicted as the “white power baby.” In the wake of the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks in the United States, inflammatory anti-Islamic hate speech began to appear at certain websites.
Hate speech, unfortunately, is not confined to a few isolated websites. According to the Simon Wiesenthal Center, which monitors such sites, there are more than 7,000 websites, blogs, newsgroups, and You-Tube video sites, propagating hate speech and digital terrorism. Some extremist sites have been constructed by Europeans, but hosted on American servers to avoid more stringent antihate laws in Europe.30
What can be done about this growing subculture of hate on the Internet? The great danger is that the message of hate and bigotry, once confined to reclusive, powerless groups, can now be spread more expeditiously in cyberspace. Unlike obscenity and libel, hate speech is not illegal under U.S. federal law and it is fully protected by the First Amendment.
On the other hand, in European countries like Germany and France, anti-Semitic, Nazi-oriented websites are illegal, along with other forms of hate speech. In Germany, the government has required ISPs to eliminate these sites under the threat of prosecution. Critics of this approach argue that it is beyond the capability of ISPs to control content in such a vast region as the World Wide Web. It is also illegal for Internet companies located in other countries to make available Nazi materials in Germany. American companies have tried to be as accommodating as possible. For example, Amazon.com no longer sells copies of Hitler’s autobiography, Mein Kampf, to its German customers, that is, customers who access the German-language site.
Answer preview The rapid expansion of hate speech on the Web raises similar problems and controversies.
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