Hate Groups on the Internet

The Web of Hate

Technology has provided our society with numerous innovations that have been created to improve the quality of life on a daily basis. One such innovation is the Internet. The access to a wide variety of information is perhaps the most valuable tool, as well as the most important tool, that we have entering the twenty-first century. There are virtually no limits on how much can be achieved through the use of the Internet. This is not, however, necessarily a good thing. Most people find that offensive material such as child pornography and hate-related propaganda can be viewed by people too easily via the Internet. While child pornography is a detestable subject, it does not have the sort of appeal that a hate group website does in that there are stricter guidelines preventing individuals from attaining child pornography material from the Internet. These stricter guidelines include the Communications Decency Act (1995), which forbids the use of the Internet for such purposes as attaining material of a child pornographic nature (Wolf, 2000). This law can also be used to monitor the hate group websites, but since the law is too broad, it is rarely held up in court. The hate group websites do, however, have a large enough following that there is legislation being formed to specifically target the material on the sites. Despite the highly offensive nature of hate group websites, the sites should not be censored because the right to free speech must be preserved. In this paper we will define what is considered to be hateful content; why this hateful content should be protected; what else can be done to monitor this material on the Internet; and when are the people cr...

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...nt rights in order to completely abolish the views of a entire nation to stop the ignorant views of a much smaller portion of our great democratic nation.

Works Cited

1. Control of the Internet at http://alamo.nmsu.edu/library/control.html

2. Join, Free Speech, and the Internet at http://www.orins.com/freespe.html

3. Borland, John, Neo-Nazi Group Sued for Online Threats (10/20/98) at http://content.techweb.com/wire/story/TWB19981020S0010

4. Wolf, Christopher, Racists, Bigots, and Law on the Internet at http://www.adl.org/internet/internet_law3.html

5. Creativity Online Church Sites for a New Era of Evolution. 18 Apr. 2000. World Church of the Creator. 20 at http://www.wcotc.com

6. Schleifer, Yigal. Cyber Hate, The Jerusalem Report May 24, 1999: 37+.

7. Schleifer, Yigal. Taming The Wild Web, The Jerusalem Report Jan. 31, 2000: 36.