Internet hate speech is causing adolescents to commit suicide, innocent people to be killed, and children to be brainwashed. Hate speech is speech that contains threats, encourages violence, and discriminates against specific groups; these groups include race, sexual orientation, gender, and religion. Americans are divided on the issue of whether or not internet hate speech should be monitored, especially elements of hate speech such as pornography, violence, and sexually graphic music lyrics. Although internet censorship may go against freedom of speech, the regulation of hate speech on the internet is crucial in order to help prevent teenage suicide, decrease the number of violent hate crimes, and prevent children from viewing and being influenced by controversial topics, pictures, or videos.
First, internet hate speech causes thousands of children and teenagers to commit suicide each year. Sixty-five percent of children ages eight to fourteen have been involved in a cyberbullying incident. Whether it’s hate speech based off stereotypes of a particular ethnic group,
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In 1517, a man named Martin Luther wrote and posted his 95 theses on the walls of a church. The 95 theses protested the Church’s selling of indulgences. At the time, many people viewed this as hate speech, and it brought conflict amongst the Catholic Church. Additionally, Luther was threatened to be burned at the stake by Indulgence Priest Tetzel. Despite the fact that this historical example wasn’t via the internet, it is a valid connection of how hate speech can be extremely harmful to both individuals and greater society. In modern day society, the internet is one of the most powerful and influential tools to spread ideas, videos and pictures. However, when people use it to spread hate speech, it must be regulated in order to help prevent adolescent suicide, hate crimes, and danger for
Hate speech directs people to commit hateful crimes. The difference between hate crimes and regular crimes is that hate crimes are committed to a person because of his/her differences. Some examples of differences would be their gender, race, hair color, body shape, intelligence, sexual orientation, etc. Hate speech doesn’t have to be direct talking. Hate speech can now be down on the Internet or through magazine; and more people are using the Internet to publicize their vile beliefs. In the last five years, the number of hate crimes that have been reported to the FBI has increased by 3,743 (FBI statistics). That means that 11,690 hate crimes were reported in 2000 in only 48 states and not all police forces released their data. Imagine how many other hate crimes were committed that weren’t even reported to the police. Ethnic and racial violence or tension has decreased in Europe due to newly implemented hate speech laws (ABC News).
Living in the United States we enjoy many wonderful freedoms and liberties. Even though most of these freedoms seem innate to our lives, most have been earned though sacrifice and hard work. Out of all of our rights, freedom of speech is perhaps our most cherished, and one of the most controversial. Hate speech is one of the prices we all endure to ensure our speech stays free. But with hate speeches becoming increasingly common, many wonder if it is too great of a price to pay, or one that we should have to pay at all.
Moreover, cyberbullying has longer effects through a child’s life, leading the victims to turn into victim-bullies (Donegan 1). Victim bullies take their own frustrations on bullying others as an escape to help them cope with their pain caused by cyberbullying. In addition, it’s been reported that bullies commit at least one crime as an adult whereas victim-bullies commit a 23 percent higher than of the bullies (Donegan 4). Konnikova doesn’t mention that bullies also need help as much as the victims, but not all bullies are born that way. In fact, most of them have been bullied before or they have psychological problems (Donegan 5). Indeed, people should take this statistics as a wakeup call to help cyberbullies to cope with their frustrations to lower the numbers of victims, to create a better childhood, and a healthier adolescence for a better
This evidence helps explain why schools should not limit students’ online speech because it didn’t cause a substantial disruption. A reason why schools should not limit students online speech is because of the violation of constitutional rights. We question reports of increasing threats to students online. The number of young people using digital technologies is increasing rapidly, problems online are also expected to rise, simply as a result of increased use. Bullying also has a long history.
Instead, Bok suggests that we address the problem by communicating with those who are causing these disturbances and understand . Also in the essay, “Freedom of Speech Means Freedom to Hate”, Christopher Hitchens explains why banning those hate speeches may be an unwise decision for society as a whole as freedom of speech does sometimes prevent the tyranny of majority from happening. While the essay, “Why Women Aren’t Welcome on the Internet”, Amanda Hess makes for the argument that the internet have become a new and terrifying way for people to bully women who uses it. The last article, “The Case for Censoring Hate Speech,” Sean McElwee argues that censoring is required to help protect the minorities and to foster a better society. Freedom of expression should not be limited for limiting speech does not help solve the root problem and it would be near impossible for any person to regulate what people are allowed to say and not allowed to say without having any sort of bias against anyone in
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...
Tears begin to fall down a child’s face. Her body goes into shock out of fear. Her mother warned her about watching inappropriate content, and there it was, right on her computer screen. This could not have happened though. All she was doing was casually browsing the internet before a pop-up appeared. Although it may seem hard to believe, the major cause of events such as this is the lack of censorship on the internet. Internet censorship relates to the removal of offensive, inappropriate, or controversial content published online. The current problem with the internet is that there are few restrictions on what can be published or viewed. Several sites on the internet only offer a warning about inappropriate content that can easily be bypassed by agreeing to the terms. Other websites provide access to private or military information. More dreadfully, however, are websites that use their explicit content as a promotion. These factors bring the conclusion that anybody of any given age can view and publish inappropriate or dangerous content. The current problems with the internet serve for clarification as to why the United States should create a nonpartisan assembly to censor the internet in order to protect its citizens from the mental, emotional, and physical harms the internet creates.
The First Amendment is known as the most protected civil liberty that protects our right to freedom of speech. There has been much controversy regarding hate speech and laws that prohibit it. These problems have risen from generation to generation and have been protested whether freedom of speech is guaranteed. According to our text book, By the People, hate speech is defined as “hostile statements based on someone’s personal characteristics, such as race, ethnicity, religion, or sexual orientation.” Hate speech is a topic of issue for many people and their right’s, so the question is often proposed whether hate speech should be banned by government.
The First Amendment has been stretched, ripped, and torn into little pieces of propaganda, conveniently located on the “World-Wide-Web” for the viewing pleasures of all; young and old. In the last decade, more than ever, children are being taught how to make bombs, start race wars within their communities, get away with murder, and how to make crystal-meth in their kitchen sink. There are a continuously growing number of web sites that preach violence and hate; promoting violent extremism of all stripes, and the most disturbing of all is the children who are being exposed and exploited in pornographic detail. There is no denying that this is changing the world in which we live at a rapid pace. Hate crime statistics and child pornography rings have increased substantially since the popularity of the Internet. Since the First Amendment protects these Internet Providers it has become more and more difficult to put a stop to these extremely vulgar web sites. With so much information on the web it is hard to identify every type of this explicit material. Combating online extremism presents enormous technological and legal difficulties. Even if it were electronically feasible to keep these types of sites off the Internet, the international nature of this medium makes legal regulation virtually impossible. Furthermore, in the United...
In conclusion, cyber bullying is a problem that is growing exponentially with the expansion of today’s technology. In order to stop the hatred thrown onto children through the Internet, preventative strategies need to be put in place. Too many children are being worn down mentally and emotionally due to being bullying anonymously on social media, through texts, and over email messages. Ignoring this problem can not continue. There are so many promising preventative routes to take when approaching cyber bullying. More people need to be educated and aware of the prevention methods available to them, because the varieties of prevention methods are endless.
Hate language and bullying behavior are seen all over the world among people of all ages. Even though the United States has an amendment known as freedom of speech, there is a line that people cross when hate language and bullying are involved. This behavior happens so often that sometimes people misinterpret it. For example, people might take the usage of hate language as a joke, but in reality, it is hurtful to people and can damage people’s lives. Mary R Harman and Marilyn J Wilson, explain in chapter four in Beyond Grammar Language, power, and the classroom, that hate language and bullying behavior affects people in a destructive way, and it happens so often that people need to be aware of the hateful behavior.
Internet usage in children and adolescents has been increasing in a steadily fashion in the past number of years and with the increase in internet usage, a new form of bullying has developed – Cyber bullying. Cyber bullying can be defined as “the electronic posting of mean-spirited messages about a person,” (Merriam-Webster, 2012). This form of bullying can come through various mediums including but not limited to text messages, emails, videos, and social networking sites. There is an overwhelming amount of information that defines cyber bullying, identifies the demographics of bullies and victims of cyber bullying, and identifies the outcomes of cyber bullying on victims. More focus needs to be placed on who the perpetrators of this form of violence are and how this form of violence is linked to traditional bullying. This will allow researchers and practitioners to move forward with research and implementation preventative methods and intervention once the problem has already occurred.
There are two real issues at stake when looking at this controversial topic. The first issue is finding a way to protect our children from potentially damaging material. There are advocates to censoring the Internet and removing this type of material because it will help shelter our children from this type of content. On the other hand, Free Speech advocates believe that it is the individual citizens right to have access to this typ...
Imagine being personally targeted and bullied by another individual constantly. Maybe never seriously injured but verbally abused in person and possibly online. The issue of cyberbullying can be quite pivotal in this new generation. Cyberbullying is a controversial matter that the world must address because of how it can occur anywhere at any time, causes harm to targeted people, and affects all associated parties.
Cyberbullying should be a criminal offense because whether it’s bullying or cyberbullying, it still damages a person emotionally and physically. Admittedly, many will argue that it is crossing the line to force perpetrators behind bars when it is not even bullying, but some foul words thrown in social sites. However, there is no difference between cyberbullying and offline bullying when it is still an issue that constantly eats away at its victims, abusing them with hurtful words and messages. “The United States Department of Health and Human Services calculated the percentages of bullied victims, where 37% of teens have been physically bullied, while 52% of teens have been cyberbullied” (Cyber/Bullying Statistics). Studies shown indicate that there have been more cases of cyberbullying than offline bullying, whereas people believe that “cyberbullying is not real bullying” and “it is to speak out in what...