Hate on the Net

KEYWORDS: CYBERHATE; RACISM; NATIONALISM; NAZI; INTER-ETHNIC CONFLICT; INVALIDATION MYTHS; INTERNET; HATE MONGERING; HUMAN RIGHTS; HOMOSEXUALITY

This paper will attempt to demonstrate that cyberhate messages promoted on the Internet by organized political and religious hate groups incite hatred and promote harmful action against racial, ethnocultural, religious and same-sex oriented minorities. The author’s analysis of racist, anti-Semitic and homophobic cyberhate messages will provide empirical evidence to support the thesis that, by manipulating deeply held invalidation myths to provide “evidence” for their arguments, high tech hatemongers incite virulent hatred of and harmful action toward targeted minorities. By so doing, high tech hatemongering violates minority members’ human rights to dignity and equality by denying their fundamental freedom from group defamation and harassment.