What can be found in the web? News, books, music, movies, sex...Everything. You don't need to search deeper.

During a Conference organized by B'nai Brith Canada , the Washington-based director of IBM's internet strategy systems and technology group development , Mr. Michael Nelson,    stated that "The Net is going to be as versatile and ubiquitous as paper". And he's true. 

He didn't refer just to the size of the Web: he was actually talking about  the growing amount of materials that are published day by day , especially hate materials and racist websites. "There is no way any government can control the amount of hate material that is going to be out there," Nelson told.

The concept of Democracy conveys freedom of speech, a value that is included in the International Chart of Human Rights among fundamental rights and the web is a  product of this freedom:

In former Soviet Satellites, for example,  racist and hate propaganda had a sudden and dizzy raise, since the fall of Berlin Wall, because after years when they could not  express their opinion freely, many people and “organization” considered the freedom of speech as an occasion to “ say everything, with no consequences".

This sad misunderstood that happened in the core of Europe not many years ago, is still taking place in the digital ground, where not only it is possible to publish each sort of materials, but in most cases it is impossible to trace the origin of such publications.

Just think about what is happening in the USA where hate contents targeting American people is spread by US-based websites , or about the issue concerning the protest for Prophet Mohammed pictures, or about street gangs fighting online.

A discomforting warning was disclosed by experts, regarding this wave of web-hate: “it will grow”

Unfortunately, it is not easy to find out a solution to this problem.  In some countries around the world, censoring regimes have been implemented   but we can hardly believe that they are aimed to prevent web-violence!

Moreover, thinking about censorship as a solution, is a particularly risible idea, because it is extremely easy to move around:  websites containing racist, hate or Nazi materials can be hidden behind other, innocuous sites, and an endless number of tools and technological devices could be used to overcome barriers and prohibitions: P2P, for instance, is the easiest example of how to move from direct web to the underground..

But a solution is needed because the implications of violent and racist propaganda via web could be definitely dangerous : recently, Slovakia and Hungary had to face a number of violent actions that generated an increasing tension between these two countries: everything started on July 30^th  when a video portraying  Slovakian radicals burning Hungarian flag and shouting anti-Hungarian slogans, was posted on Youtube. The video was removed on August 7^th but it was too late.

The  video was soon seized by local police, but no culprits have been found: the only clear thing is that the video was shot by a neo-Nazi group and posted by a 21-year old user as known as "werwolfSSlovakia". 

In spite of the immediate reaction by Slovakian Minister of Foreign affairs who condemned the video,  Hungarian government officially complained about it because they consider this last initiative against Hungary, as the fruit of anti-Hungarian statements released by  the leader of the Slovak National Party, Jan Slota, who is famous in eastern Europe thanks to the exclamation:  "we'll mount tanks and level off Budapest".

The protest soon moved from the digital world to football grounds, among radical football fans from  both sides , but  these actions were denied by both governments. Recently, then, Slovak Home affairs Minister Robert Kalinak, stated that the  investigation into an alleged attack by two skinheads against an Hungarian girl has been called off because the girl mad the whole story up, but actually she never admitted to have invented the aggression.

 Mr. Nelson was right. What we see today, is just the peak of an iceberg. And there’ll be more: as B'nai Brith's national legal counsel Marvin Kurz said, "the criminalization of hate propaganda is an important social step we can take."

Can we take it? We have to.
Our single governments should do it? Or EU? USA? Or is it too late?Are we behind the times?

Comments Index (Total Messages: 3)

can we take it? Written by Guest on 2006-09-20 08:22:22 Re: can we take it? Written by Guest on 2006-09-20 13:04:50 Hate hates to hate hate! Written by Orthotox on 2006-09-25 05:06:59

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