Albert Doyle CS408-01

Assignment 5: Hate and the Internet

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  1. I define Hate Speech as a type of communication that is intended to express hatred toward a particular group. These groups include people of a certain race, gender, sexual orientation, religion, or belief.
  2. Placing limits of free expression on the internet does not seem like an effective way to stop hate speech. Also, with any restrictions put in effect, there will still be people that will abuse them and continue hate speech. I think the most effective way the government could stop hate speech is to monitor sites that contain hate speech and only shut down the people contributing to the problem.
  3. Reaching an international consensus on hate speech would leave a major group of people that who disagree with the definition. Understanding the problem is helpful, but won't be useful in the fight to stop it.
  4. Censoring or filtering hate group websites is one of the more effective ways to manage the internet. There are plenty bad people in this world, and most of them have access to the internet. Filtering and censoring criminal acts or plans helps catch criminals and potentially stop an attack before it happens.
  5. The creators of the hate-oriented sites should not be held accountable for the crimes others are talking about on their page. However, they should be responsible for creating the site and allowing this type of behavior to occur.
  6. It is a good goal to protect children from finding any hate related material on the internet. But it is impossible to eliminate just the bad and only keep the good. It is ultimately up to the parents to monitor their children's internet usage and make sure they are visiting the safe parts of the web.
  7. The same laws should apply both online and offline. If a crime is performed online, the person should be prosecuted and brought to the government's justice system.
  8. I think the standards that apply to hate-related material should be different from the standards that apply to other objectionable material such as pornography. The same standards should apply if the pornography includes hate-related material or contains minors under the age of 18.