The Grade 10 boy was attacked in the locker room of St. (Read more...)
Web 2.0 gives new tools to hate groups: experts
(, 19 November 2008)
WASHINGTON (AFP) — Social networks MySpace
and Facebook and video-sharing site YouTube are being used as powerful new
tools by extremist groups to spread a message of hate, participants in a
conference on Internet hate speech warned here on Monday.
\"MySpace, Facebook and YouTube are the
\'killer apps\' of the Internet today, and they\'re used by millions, but the
virus of hate certainly has infected those technologies,\" Christopher
Wolf, chair of the International Network Against CyberHate (INACH), told the
Global Summit on Internet Hate Speech.
\"The Internet continues to be exploited by
people who espouse hate in many different ways -- anti-Semites, Holocaust deniers,
racists, homophobes and terrorists,\" Wolf said on the opening day of the
two-day event hosted by the French embassy.
\"The Internet toolbox that is available to
hatemongers has had a number of new items added to it over the last several
years,\" Wolf said, citing Web 2.0 features such as blogs, social networks,
video sites and instant messaging.
Stefan Glaser, a co-founder of INACH, an
umbrella group for non-governmental groups fighting online hate speech, said
that with Web 2.0 tools \"the effect of hate is getting broadened.\"
\"Neo-Nazis are very well aware of social
network platforms for recruiting the next generation, for infiltrating youth
groups,\" said Glaser, who runs Jugendschutz.net, the German bureau which
protects minors on the Internet.
Deborah Lauter, national director of civil
rights for the Anti-Defamation League, said extremist groups \"use these
social-networking sites and they create a community, a community of hate and it
has very real consequences.\"
Lauter cited the case of an Oklahoma woman who
was shot dead this month, allegedly by a member of the white supremacist Ku
Klan Klan, after being recruited through MySpace.
The woman was killed after she apparently
changed her mind and tried to flee a Ku Klux Klan initiation rite, according to
police in Louisiana.
\"In today\'s Web 2.0 world with
user-generated content, social network sites like Facebook and MySpace, mobile
computing and always-on connectivity every aspect of the Internet is being used
by extremists of every ilk to repackage old hatreds and to recruit new
haters,\" Wolf said.
\"The emergence of new Internet technologies
and their adoption by online haters is far more pernicious than the static
website that most of us have been focusing on over the years,\" he said.
\"While the problem of hate-filled websites
certainly exists, much more problematic is the sudden and rapidly increasing
deployment of Web 2.0 technologies that spread not only written messages of
hate but now audio messages and increasingly video messages,\" Wolf said.
\"On YouTube, for example, there are
thousands of hate videos that are uploaded with messages of racism,
anti-Semitism, homophobia and intolerance towards minorities,\" said Wolf,
a lawyer and expert in Internet law.
\"There are sites on Facebook and MySpace
that promote civil rights but there are many, many more that demonize Jews and
Muslims and Gays and other minorities,\" he said.
\"All of that is prohibited by the operators
of Facebook and MySpace in the terms of service,\" he said. (Read more...)
Report to the Canadian Human Rights Commission Concerning Section 13 of the Canadian Human Rights Act and the Regulation of Hate Speech on the Internet
(chrc-ccdp.ca, 12 October 2008)
Available in HTML or PDF format.
(Read more...)
Hatred and Antisemitism Online
( Agencia Judia Noticias (Jewish News Agency - Argentina), 4 September 2008)
In February the Global Forum to Combat Antisemitism
met in Jerusalem.
Speaking at the conference I introduced the audience to the threat of
antisemitism in Web 2.0. (Read more...)
Hate Jurisdictions of Human Rights Commissions: A System in Need of Reform
(Bnai Brith Canada, 12 August 2008)
Available in PDF or HTML format.
(Read more...)
China Launches Online Porn Purge
(E-Commerce Times, 16 April 2007)
The Chinese government on Thursday announced a six-month campaign to eliminate from the country Internet pornography and other material considered objectionable. The effort will also target illegal online lotteries and contraband trade, fraud and "content that spreads rumors and is of a slanderous nature," according to Zhang Xinfeng, China's vice minister of the Ministry of Public Security.
Chinese government departments, including the Chinese Ministry of Public Security, began a six-month campaign Thursday to eliminate pornography and other material from the Internet in China, according to reports from the Xinhua News Agency.
Some 137 million Chinese use the Internet, second only to the United States. (Read more...)
Russian faces first hate blog probe
(COOLTECH, 16 April 2007)
A blogger in northern Russia who wrote that police deserve to be publicly burned faces a hate crimes probe, the first to target blogging in Russia, the Kommersant daily reported on Friday.
Prosecutors in the northern city of Syktyvkar, in the Komi province, have opened a criminal investigation against Savva Terentyev (21), who on February 15 posted an entry on a web log hosted by the popular website livejournal.com, the newspaper reported.
Terentyev wrote that police are "filth," "the most stupid, uneducated representatives of the living (animal) world," according to a photograph of what Kommersant said was his message.
Terentyev allegedly went on to recommend that six police in every city be "ceremonially burned daily, or better twice a day (at midday and midnight, for example)".
The ovens should be like those at the Nazi concentration camp of Auschwitz, he allegedly said.
If found guilty of "stirring up hatred" he faces two years in prison or a fine of 300 000 rubles ($11 620).
The blog belongs to local journalist Boris Suranov who was describing a raid by police to search the offices of the opposition newspaper Iskra, Kommersant reported.
(Read more...)
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