The number of web sites promoting hate and violence has almost
quadrupled in four years, according to a survey published in May by
SurfControl. The e-mail filtering company found that between 2000
and 2004 the number of hate and violence sites that it monitors
increased from 2,756 to 10,926, or about 300%.
Concern about a growing number of racist and xenophobic attacks,
particularly in Europe, led to last week's conference on hate
speech, hate crime and the internet. The two-day meeting, which
took place in Paris under the aegis of the Organisation for
Security and Cooperation in Europe, concluded on Thursday with the
thought that, while no agreement had been reached, at least the
issue had now been raised globally
The main discussion of the conference focused on the split
between the European and US positions, with the Europeans, most
notably France, keen to regulate web sites and the US unwilling to
suppress them.
"Today, the internet, like the printing press, can be used to
promote unpopular ideas," Stephan Minikes, US Ambassador to the
OSCE, told the conference. "However, the United States believes
that ultimately the ability of the internet to promote discourse
and disseminate ideas is the very solution to - and not a problem
in - the fight against racism, xenophobia, and anti-Semitism."
"Rather than fear the purveyors of hate, let us confront them in
the marketplace of free ideas, where the bright light of truth will
expose their bigotry and their lies can be unmasked," he added.
The split between Europe and the US on this issue has been
raised before - during negotiations for the Cybercrime
Convention.
The Convention, which is due to come into force on 1st July, is
the first international treaty on criminal offences committed
against or with the help of computer networks, but ran into
difficulties over clauses relating to the dissemination of racist
or xenophobic propaganda via computer networks.
Eventually these had to be separated from the main text in order
to avoid alienating the US and are now contained in an Additional
Protocol which, once it comes into effect, will require signatory
countries to criminalise racist and xenophobic material on the
net.
