Hate Web sites on rise globally

By Greg Wright
Gannett News Service

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Tips for parents How to keep hate-filled Web sites from children, teens: Know the sites your children surf. Let children know they may run across unacceptable, hateful images and comments on the Web. Don't rely on filtering software alone to keep hate from your kids. Work with kids to devise a strategy to avoid or address hate-filled information from the Web. Explain that not all information on the Internet is accurate. Complain to your Internet service provider if you notice your children have accessed hate Web sites. Providers often can deactivate a hate-filled site if they host it. Source: Rabbi Abraham Cooper of the Simon Wiesenthal Center

The number of Web sites around the world that promote hate and violence rose to 10,926 in April, a 26 percent increase from the start of the year, according to SurfControl, a California company that helps companies filter objectionable material from e-mail and Internet services.

The Southern Poverty Law Center, a Birmingham, Ala., group that fights intolerance, said the number of U.S.-based hate Web sites rose 12 percent to 497 in 2003 compared with the previous year.

And the Simon Wiesenthal Center in Los Angeles said it now monitors 4,000 hate sites around the world, up from one in 1995.

The increase doesn't alarm some human rights groups because relatively few people are likely to frequent the sites. But others warn that a proliferation of hate on the Web makes it more likely impressionable children and teenagers will run across such sites.

Many sites disparage blacks and Jews, said Susan Larson, SurfControl's president of global content. But the company has noticed more anti-Muslim Web sites since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks and the U.S.-led wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

The Internet also has created strange bedfellows. Some white supremacist Web sites support Muslim insurgents because they believe Jews engineered the U.S. war on terrorism to get rid of Israel's enemies.

The Web site of National Alliance, a group that wants to preserve what it calls white culture, claims that Israel knew in advance about the Sept. 11 attacks and had the technology to launch anthrax attacks.

Some people who promote such sites deny they spread hate.

Westboro Baptist Church in Topeka, Kan., created an anti-gay Web site about five years ago. The 100-member congregation believes homosexuality violates God's word and wanted to use the Internet to preach their message.

"I get phone calls (of support) from all over the country regularly," said church member Shirley Phelps Roper.

The church uses the site to organize anti-gay rallies around the nation, said Alice Leeds, spokeswoman for Parents, Families and Friends of Lesbians and Gays.

"What they do is very, very hurtful," Leeds said.

The increase in hate sites could stem from more people using the Internet, said Mark Potok, spokesman for the Southern Poverty Law Center. But the Internet is so transient, many sites aren't active for long.

A noted Islamic organization said it is more worried about hateful anti-Muslim comments on the radio because these seem more likely to incite people to violence.

But the hate sites harm, even if they do not spur more violence, said Brian Marcus, director of Internet monitoring for the Anti-Defamation League.