Hate Groups

Even hate groups are benefiting from social networks. I am curious if crime, terrorism, and other threats to our safety is benefiting from this movement

This articles discusses how social networking could be helping hate organizations grow. There are many different mediums that hate groups can use to help increase their followers, including social networking sites. Some social networking sites are working on removing any hate centered groups from their sites in order to combat this problem. Is there anyway to truly keep people from spreading hate on social networking sites?

http://uk.reuters.com/article/governmentFilingsNews/idUKN1340218820090513?pageNumber=1&virtualBrandChannel=0

A huge problem of this is brought up by the article:

Leena Shehadeh, a 17-year-old who attended a presentation of the report with her class in New York, said such games and racist language are often treated as jokes by her generation.

"We didn't live through the Holocaust, we didn't live through slavery," she said during an audience discussion. "So people see it as a joke, until something bad happens."

In regards to stopping the spread of hate groups, one possible way is too have a delay in between when a person tries to post something and when it actually appears on the site. Obviously, its pretty unreasonable to have to screen every single post, but its maybe some kind of automated checking system (that's more effective then whatever they're using now) could stop the spread of hate groups.

I can't imagine that a delay in displaying a post would have any significant effect on the spread of hatred and racism. I don't think that ideas like racism would follow a traditional information cascade pattern. I speculate that most of the people who truly believe in this stuff have been infused with these thoughts from a very young age and through a variety of interpersonal relationships. A single blog post that may come out a week later than it was written will likely have no effect whatsoever on the spread of these ideas. This is probably due to the lack of actual new information described in a blog on racism and the fact that nothing said will be time sensitive. Also- a site that supports a racist posting probably has no desire to slightly delay it rather than just ignore it or censor it.

Sorry, I guess I was unclear. When I said a delay for when it appears on the site, I meant it in the sense that posts would be screened before they are visible to the public, whether by some automated checking system or actual human screeners. And even if the volume of posts is so large that its impossible to screen all of them by a person, then maybe just checking certain thread titles would have to do. At least it would be better then what's being done now to stop the spread of hate groups.

That article contained some alarming statistics that I hadn't thought about before like that there's been a 25 percent increase in hate groups in the internet world. At least on the airwaves (TV and Radio), racial violence, anti-semitism, homophobia, hate music and terrorism are somewhat monitored by laws and the FCC. I'm really not sure how one can combat this, especially with people crying things like freedom of expression and freedom of speech, etc. I think some kind of screen like Andrew suggested would be the best bet, except that would mean more work for a website creator. Also, are most of these hateful comments/videos, etc being posted on oft traveled sites or on specific ones created to promote and advertise their own views?

The article mentions hate groups in social networking sites such as youtube and facebook but it also mentions blogs that are only for that purpose such as "New Saxon," a Neo-Nazi site, in which case what can be done about it/can anything actually be done about it?
The delayed posting idea could work for sites like facebook that are actively trying to get rid of these groups but about websites that promote these views? Also, it is kind of a thin line for facebook since it is not always obvious what could be described as 'hateful'. Coming from a very small, conservative town, I see many people that I went to high school with join groups that I personally find racist, homophobic and just plain hateful but to them they are just voicing their opinions. must a group have the word 'kill' in the title to be considered a hate group or are some of us just overly sensitive?
Also, the example they gave about youtube is very sad since n matter how many times you try to delete this guy's account he keeps creating new ones and spreading his message of hatred.

There have been alarming number of facebook groups involving hatred of some sort. Whether it's the Japanese overfishing or the Chinese poisoning the world, these numbers I would say are not small. That said, there have been some Neo-Nazi movements in Germany, and they are mostly led by a young coalitions of German men.

It seems ridiculous, but at the same time, it is social networking. Bonding and forming groups that share the same interests, friends, and enemies. If the number of relationships continue to grow and trends do not subside, we could see some sort of enlarged scale of digital flamewars in the near future.

I think that connecting hate groups via social networks has its upsides and its downsides.

The negative aspects of the groups are that it can cause people who were on the fence between being a "hater" or a "lover" an easy support network to hate. Additionaly, it can provide a way to unite groups that would otherwise be disorganized and seperated by long physical gaps.

However, on the upside, it is very easy to track internet based social netorking from a law enforcement standpoint. Look at the terroriests in Afganistan who have had to turn to oldfashioned carrier pigons to transfer information.

Personally, im all for connecting people of like intrests, especcially when it gives our law enforcement officials an easier time of keeping tabs on those who are looking to break the law.