 On Tuesday, InformationWeek reported on some disturbing statistics concerning online hate-organizations and misuse of Web 2.0 technologies. The Simon Wiesenthal Center, a Jewish human-rights organization, released its report last week entitled “Online Terror + Hate: The First Decade.” The study tracked the increase of online racial, religious and cultural offensive material. Lamentably, data, collected over the past month, indicated a 30% increase in such material from 2007. Furthermore, the center’s research tracked more than “8,000 Web sites promote hate and terrorism or display extremist or discriminatory postings.” Eight thousand may not seem like a lot considering the billions of sites and pages out there on the web. But in my opinion, that’s 8,000 too many. Analysts for the organization uncovered that more and more extremists and terrorists are making use of popular social networking websites and media sharing platforms. InformationWeek pointed out that the tools these sites provide, such as blogs, customizable games, community forums and video logs, are staples in the ever-growing Web 2.0 environment. They also allow manipulative users to “promote their views, demean others, raise money, and recruit and train new members around the globe.” The study showed that popular sites such as YouTube and Facebook are becoming easy avenues for extremists to get their message out there. Associate dean of the Wiesenthal Center, Rabbi Abraham Cooper, stated that extremists and terrorists are increasingly using the Internet as a virtual soapbox because of its overall convenience; it provides “global reach, difficulties monitoring communications, and a market of more than 1 billion users.” Rabbi Cooper commented on the upcoming presidential election, expressing his discontent with ethnicities and personal beliefs which are easily attacked: the “Internet continues to be used to demean and threaten African Americans, Jews, immigrants, gays and virtually every religious denomination.” I think it’s a shame that there are people out there who completely misuse the miraculous improvements made to the Internet over the past decade. Features such as social networking websites and personalized blogs are meant to expand our horizons and interaction with others online, not foster hateful discriminations. However, with every crippling setback, developers and online industries tend to initiate user protection codes and material prohibitions… on that note, let’s hope we can work towards a safer, friendlier online world… and real world at that. |
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