Jill Coyman, Living In A Networked World, Section 1, Assignment 4

Contact Information:

Email: jau784@wildcats.unh.edu

Assignment 4: Hate and the Internet

• Hate Speech is any type of communication that someone has to intentionally hurt or insult someone or a group of people
• I think it would be very difficult to place limitations on free expression in order to deal with problems regarding hate speech. Everyone has their right to freedom of speech, and most people will not follow these limitations because of their rights. I think that putting some limitations on speech would definitely help people who are affected by it.
• I don't think we should attempt to reach an internation consensus because hate speech could be different in other places, and each country has the right to make their own laws. If every country agreed, then maybe it would be okay to create it.
• I think it would be appropriate to filter websites containing hate speech that would affect and hurt people who are reading it. But websites with hate speech would be very difficult to filter because some people will still be offended, so in that case they should just choose to not go on that particular webpage
• The creators of the hate-oriented websites should be help responsible because if that is the type of webpage they created, other users are obviously going to do hate-oriented crime on it. If the creator did not create a hate-oriented webpage then I would say that it is not their fault the users committed crimes.
• I would definitely advocate special restrictions on making hate related material available to children on the internet. Some hate related material should require a certain age to view the webpage. If the parents set up restrictions on the computer, some of those websites that are not viewable for children should go under those restrictions. But if the parent's of the child do not care what the child views, then I would say it should be okay
• I think there should be some distinction of what is legal online and offline because those two things are completely different.
• I think some of the standards that apply to hate crime should also apply to other objectionable material. Only some of these standards should apply because hate speech and pornography are two completely different things, but they can also be insulting to some people