Tom Auger, CS408, Section 2, Assignment 4

Assignment 5

Assignment 6

Assignment 7

Contact Information

Assignment 4: Hate and the Internet

1. I would define hate speech as anything that mentally or emotionally hurts a person. This could be from anything from a message that someone is trying to get across through the internet to a picture/symbol. Either way someone feels uncomfortable with what was said and finds it offensive. Usually people feel uncomfortable because it targets their race, gender, ethnicity, nationality, etc.
2. Yes I would place limits on free expression because it is not fair to people being affected by it. I am not quite sure exactly where the line would be drawn but probably somewhere in the middle of what (people who believe in free speech) want and (people who believe limitations on free speech) want.
3. Yes I believe that we should come to a consensus on the definition of hate speech because it would clearly define exactly what it is. It would be like speeding or not speeding. Clearly you are doing one of them so thins would make accusing someone of hate speech much more definite.
4. Yes censoring or filtering of certain hate group websites is appropriate. For example pornography sites should be place in the category of websites that should be censored of filtered.
5. No people should not be held accountable for the wrong-doings of others even if the person committing the crime got the mentality from the site the (lone wolves) posted. However, I do believe that there should be a consensus of the definition of hate crime is so the people creating the sites are accused of some crime.
6. Yes I would advocate special restrictions on hate-related material such as pornographic and alcoholic sites that are not supposed to be legal unless the person is over a certain age. Those things can be helped and only tempt a person more so if a restriction was put in to place then the abuse of it may decrease.
7. I believe that most things that are posted online that are uncomfortable to some people should mainly have restrictions however there are some things that should be plain illegal; like instructions on how to make homemade artillery or something that is already illegal that can be made from home is an example of something that should be illegal online.
8. Yes I believe that they should because people should be able to choose whether they would like to see it or not. Restrictions, censorship, and filtering are all examples of what should be done to hate-related material. This is where the middle is drawn between the opposing sides.