Anti-Semitism on the Internet
A relatively new element
in the overall picture of anti-Semitism in the U.S. is "electronic
hate"-bigotry transmitted over the Internet. The Internet's growth has
been remarkable. By the end of 1996, an estimated 35 million people
worldwide were using it with thousands more going on-line each day. Tens
of millions of different types of transactions daily pass through the
copper and fiberoptic cables that tie its components together in a
worldwide network. It is the emblem of the modern age-of an
ever-shrinking world linked by shared information.
Unfortunately, amid the
torrent of information on the Internet, a disturbing stream of
hate-filled vitriol directed against religious, ethnic, racial and
cultural minorities flows unimpeded. Anti-Semites have been particularly
active in exploiting the medium. They use the Net to reach an audience
many times larger than any they could have ever previously hoped to
reach with their flyers, rallies and shopworn canards, creating a
troubling, persistent anti-Semitic background noise that pollutes the
Internet. What was local is now global, potentially accessible by
everyone who uses the Internet: the young and old, the sophisticated and
the naive.
At first, the Internet
was difficult to use and relatively inaccessible to the average
individual. Today, it has become much more "user-friendly" and
inexpensive, making it attractive to determined, if underfunded and
poorly supported, extremist hate groups. The network extends the range
of their message. It is now global, instantly accessible to a dispersed
audience. Online information is available at any time, at relatively low
cost to anyone with a computer and phone. For consumers who simply want
to browse the World Wide Web, send E-mail and read and write to
newsgroups, Internet access is fairly inexpensive-less than 75 cents a
day. The basic cost for would-be publishers who want to distribute
information on the World Wide Web, the fastest growing part of the
Internet, is not significantly higher.
In addition, the
Internet is an unregulated environment. Anyone can start a site and
publish anything. Unlike the traditional marketplace where publishers,
editors and reviewers were able to separate out the lies and distortions
of the haters, the Internet makes all kinds of information equally
accessible. The reputable and the meretricious exist side by side and
even responsible journalists sometimes cannot tell them apart.
Internet technology
gives eager propagandists a variety of ways to spread their message. The
World Wide Web-offering text, images, sound and animation-can replace or
supplement the newsletters and other publications produced by hate
groups. Learning basic publishing skills for the World Wide Web, while
not trivial, is relatively straightforward; putting a site together can
be a matter of simple "sweat equity." On a higher, but not daunting,
level of sophistication, audio copies of speeches or radio broadcast can
be placed on line for downloading (copying) to the user's machine for
later playback or can be heard in "real time"-as they are transmitted.
By 1996, a number of
notorious extremists with long histories of anti-Semitic activism were
exploiting the possibilities of the Web. Don Black, a former leader of
the Ku Klux Klan; Ernst Zundel, a Hitler-admiring Holocaust denier; the
neo-Nazi National Alliance of William Pierce; Pete Peters who preaches
the anti-Semitic pseudo-theology known as "Identity" Christianity, and
Tom Metzger, a violence-advocating racist and anti-Semite, are among
those with a presence in cyberspace.
Some sites were
particularly active. During the year, the National Alliance began
posting copies of its radio broadcasts on the Web. Black continued to
update his list of links to extremist sites while Zundel published more
and more material. Other Holocaust deniers, Greg Raven of the Institute
for Historical Review and Bradley Smith, known for placing
Holocaust-denying ads in college newspapers, also increased their
activity on the Web.
In 1996, hate publishing
on the Web was in a state of flux. Some previously active sites-The
Aryan Crusaders Library and Christian Identity Online-stopped
publishing. Yet, despite these losses, the number of haters using the
Web gradually increased during 1996.
USA Watch, the
computer version of a particularly scurrilous newspaper, Jew Watch,
that frequently printed "articles" about "Jewish ritual murder,"
disappeared early in the year only to reappear with another name toward
the end. Louis Beam, a leading advocate of militant antigovernment
resistance who is associated with the ferociously anti-Semitic Aryan
Nations, started his own Web site. Others, less well known but eager,
also created their own hate pages. One young neo-Nazi skinhead proudly
posts his picture and announces that he is 16.
Usenet
newsgroups-on-line community discussion bulletin boards-also contribute
to the proliferation of publicly visible anti-Semitic hate on-line.
Anyone with access can read and send messages to the newsgroups. To read
or post messages to a group, the user simply uses the newsreader program
provided by most Internet services. The number of messages posted to the
newsgroups is staggering; upwards of 60,000,000 a year and growing!
Considering these numbers, it is not surprising that tens of thousands
of anti-Semitic rants show up each year and 1996 was no exception.
Unlike the World Wide Web, where the user must seek out a site, haters
on the Usenet can send their messages, unsolicited, to any group.
Some groups such as
alt.politics.nationalism.white or alt.revisionism are
specifically designed to provide a discussion area for bigots and
anti-Semites. Here one finds the traditional themes of anti-Semites:
deicide; Jews in control of banks, the government and the media; Jews as
destroyers of culture. A newer wrinkle is the claim that the Holocaust
is a fiction-a Jewish/Zionist plot to extort money and power.
It is not surprising
that groups such as soc.culture.jewish or soc.culture.israel-established
to discuss issues of concern to Jews-are, from time to time, peppered
with anti-Semitic screeds designed to provoke and upset. But any
newsgroup is a potential target for a bigot in the mood to antagonize
and intimidate. Soc.culture.nepal, misc.kids,
alt.politics.media, rec.music.compose or sci.physics,
to mention a few of the groups where one would not expect to find
anti-Semitic discussions, are among the many that have been "hit" with
incendiary messages from haters who seek to stir anti-Semitic passions
anywhere they can. And any person who wants to send hate messages can
send them to multiple groups at one time-a technique known as "cross
posting."
The nature of the
Internet makes it very easy for haters to strike. Unlike the people who
venture out in the night to spray swastikas on tombstones or synagogues,
Internet bigots can spew their hatred without ever running the risk of
being identified. They can also work far outside the neighborhoods in
which they live. Newsgroup hate messages are more like anonymous phone
calls or letters that can be sent simultaneously to hundreds or
thousands of people. (To be consistent with past practice, the ADL
Audit counts such simultaneous hate messages as one
incident.)
Anonymity, a key part of
Internet culture, also plays a role in encouraging on-line hate. There
is no requirement that a person accurately identify him or herself.
Unless the individual chooses to reveal it, no one need know the user's
real name, sex, age or anything else about him or her. E-mail addresses
are frequently "handles"-nicknames-such as "Agent13" "Aryan" or "Titan
White." This is expected; role-playing is a commonly accepted practice
on the Internet. Also, many mail programs make it possible for users to
create false E-mail addresses, a behavior common enough to have a name:
"spoofing." Some studies of user behavior on the Net indicate that
precisely because the user has no reality apart from the words on the
screen, computer-mediated communication encourages the asocial and
unrestrained behavior that characterizes many hate-motivated messages on
the Internet.
E-mail is essentially a
private, person-to-person technology but it, too, can be adapted to the
task of spreading anti-Semitic propaganda. Mass mailings are simple-and
require no postage. It is a merely a matter of compiling a mailing list
and sending a message. It is possible to mail hate messages to the
private mailboxes of large numbers of people. From time to time,
enterprising haters have managed to mass-mail hate materials to tens,
hundreds, or even thousands of people without revealing their identity.
Obviously, the ADL Annual Audit cannot treat each of these messages as a
separate incident. Like other mass mailings of hate material, however,
such a massive E-mail transmission could be counted as one incident.
The challenge of on-line
anti-Semitism is significant. The lies of the haters can be seen by more
people than ever before. Men and women of goodwill must monitor the
Internet and respond forcefully to the taunts and distortions of the
bigots.
Source:
Anti Defamation League
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