Hate and the Internet: 1: Introduction
Paul Kneisel
Kenneth S. Stern (American Jewish Committee)
via <http://www.ajc.org/pre/interneti.htm>
"For ten or twenty dollars a month, you can have a potential audience of
tens of millions of people. There was a time when these folks were stuck
surreptitiously putting fliers under your windshield wiper. Now they are
taking the same material and putting it on the Internet."
-- Ken McVay[i]
i] Barry Lazar, "Ken McVay leads the fight against hatred on the
Net," The Gazette (Montreal), April 8, 1997, p. B4.
INTRODUCTION
Visit any archive on hate and extremism and you will find a treasure trove
of books, newspapers, magazines and newsletters. If you are lucky enough to
find original mailers, many will be plain brown or manila wrappings,
designed to protect the recipient from inquisitive neighbors and postal
workers.
If the archive includes material from the 1980s and early 1990s, it likely
contains videotapes and radio programs, maybe even dial-a-hate messages
from "hot line" answering machines. It may also house faxed "alerts" that
were broadcast to group members with the push of one button, in place of
old-fashioned telephone "trees." Supporters of the Branch Davidians at Waco
used faxes, as did groups involved in some militia confrontations.
Today’s hate groups still mail newsletters, print books, produce videos and
radio programs, have message "hot lines," fax alerts and, yes, put fliers
under windshield wipers. But they increasingly rely on the Internet. Hate
groups understand that this global computer network is far superior to the
other modes of communication. Even in its infancy — for the ’net is still
being defined — it is already what CDs are to records, and may, for many,
become what electricity was to gaslight. The Internet is the most
remarkable communication advancement of our time because it is easier,
cheaper, quicker, multimedia, immense, and interactive. Hate groups no
longer have to search for people to hear their message, or hope members
will distribute newsletters. They now can set up web sites that "surfers"
young and old can visit.
Once someone finds one site, he or she will be advised of, and with one
mouse-click transported to, other like-minded groups through "links." Each
hate group no longer communicates in isolation: it uses the Internet to
advertise and to create the illusion that hate is not practiced in
isolation at the fringes, but is part of a strong worldwide movement. The
irony is that a black hate group that dehumanizes whites and a white hate
group that dehumanizes blacks frequently are two mouse-clicks from each
other, the connective tissue being antisemitism in general, and Holocaust
denial in particular.
While hate on the Internet has been recognized as a growing problem, few
workable solutions have been suggested. Some human rights groups have been
content to document the sites, following the decades-old strategy that
shedding light on hate activity will help solve the problem. But this
approach, while still appropriate, is now more complex. When an old-
fashioned hate newspaper was exposed, only the truly committed or curious
would bother to find it. Today, when a hate web site is brought to light,
anyone with a computer can access it. Exposure now means providing
hatemongers free advertising in a medium of immediate accessibility.
Some human rights groups have suggested regulating the Internet, either
through laws or software. As we will see, these "quick fixes" miss the
mark, while more time-intensive measures – such as improved training of
school-age children in basic Internet skills – hold more promise.
But it is not only school children who will need new strategies for a world
in which computers will be the primary research tool. The continued
development of the Internet will force human rights groups and others to
reexamine – for the first time in many decades – basic strategies about how
we combat hatred and hate groups. This paper will analyze the history of
hate on the Internet, provide a blueprint for combating the problem, and
most importantly, demonstrate ways to use this new technology to fight
hatred throughout society.
-- Kenneth S. Stern
December 13, 1999