Racism on the internet

Category: Race and Ethnicity

Racism and Prevention of Racism on the Internet

Kevin Shapiro, Louis Sitbon, Charlotte Bayer, Anna McVey & Alex White






YouTube’s Policies

* YouTube's Community Guidelines state "We encourage free speech and defend everyone's right to express unpopular points of view. But we don't permit hate speech which contains slurs or the malicious use of stereotypes intended to attack or demean a particular gender, sexual orientation, race, religion, or nationality".







YouTube’s Policies (cont.)

* It is extremely hard for videos to be traced. Videos can be posted anywhere, can be any length and range in quality.
* Also, all that is needed to make an account at YouTube is a password and email address. It is very easy to make a new, anonymous email that can’t be traced to your home.
* Simple technology and privacy rights help racist videos spread.
* Videos can also fall under the radar. Unless a video is titled something blatantly obvious such as “White Power” or “Asian People Are Stupid,” the video could never even show up as flagged and could easily pass through the filters.







YouTube’s Policies (cont.)

* However swear words and derogetory language is not edited out of user comments on videos. If a video is flagged on YouTube, it is reviewed by a panel. If it is deemed inappropriate, the video is taken off the site or language is edited out. However, videos are rarely flagged and unless a user were to specifically state a racist or demeaning point of view, it’s very hard for YouTube to decide what is appropriate.







Germany

* In Germany, Pro-Nazi material has been uploaded by users. There are clips from a 1940 anti-Semitic movie and song lyrics from “far-right” bands.
* A German Parliament member said YouTube hosting these films “amounts to aiding and abetting incitement of these people.”
* The videos have not been taken down even though the display of Nazi imagery/logos and supporting Nazi ideals is illegal in Germany. These crimes are punishable by jail time and severe fines.







Australia

* Videos were uploaded promoting gang violence and rape, as well as tensions between the small Lebanese-Muslim community and Australia and the rest of the citizens.
* Only until extensive media coverage promoted the videos, did YouTube remove only parts of these videos.
* The videos that remained posted included a man being beaten up by a gang, blindfolded men having knives held to their throats, as well as videos of violent riots.
* The police are trying to trace where the videos came from, but YouTube’s privacy and freedom rights make it hard for specific servers to be traced.







Anti-Islam

* Videos are posted all the time that are just political cartoons and pictures of Muslim extremists put to music.
* These videos are meant to generalize that every Muslim is a fanatic and anti-West.
* These videos have not been taken down because they are just a collaboration of pictures and cartoons that could easily be seen by research.







In our research, we discovered a really cool website. You tell it something, and it gives you relevant websites with more information on what you typed in.






The beliefs and preferences of those who work at Google, as well as the opinions of the general public, do not determine or impact our search results. Individual citizens and public interest groups do periodically urge us to remove particular links or otherwise adjust search results. Although Google reserves the right to address such requests individually, Google views the comprehensiveness of our search results as an extremely important priority. Accordingly, we do not remove a page from our search results simply because its content is unpopular or because we receive complaints concerning it. We will, however, remove pages from our results if we believe the page (or its site) violates our Webmaster Guidelines, if we believe we are required to do so by law, or at the request of the webmaster who is responsible for the page.

-Google policy on offensive content






Jew

* Google has been put under pressure recently to remove the link to “Jew Watch,” an antisemitic site that appears first when one searches for “Jew.”
* Google has not, and will not take down the link.
* However, in Germany and France, where hate speech and holocaust denial are illegal, over 113 sites have been removed from the search engine.







Prevention of Racism on Google

* Google is more of a tool to be used toward the prevention of racism than something that prevents racism itself.
* It, for the most part, allows all legal content, no matter how objectionable, and only deletes content when it is illegal, often in foreign countries.
* Google does not make any attempt, nor does it profess any attempt, to curb racist remarks on the local, national, and international level on its own accord.







Google definitely provided us with some valuable information, but when we discovered another website, Facebook, we immediately started to notice groups on the site that were, to say the least, disturbing.






White Power!

* There are multiple groups on Facebook claiming to not be racist. They say that if African Americans can say “Black Power”, Causacians can say “White Power”.
* In these groups, the members are always bickering and debating whether or not the group is racist. The truth of the matter is that most of the people in the group are racist and they are trying to justify it.







* Some groups, however, are blatantly racist.
* Facebook’s terms of sevice state that, as a member of the site, you are not allowed to post comments that are “hateful, or racially, ethnically or otherwise objectionable”
* Members of these groups are clearly violating these terms, but Facebook has taken no action.







* Perhaps Facebook will begin preventing racism on the site now that it is losing ad sales as a result.
* First Direct, Vodafone, Virgin Media, AA, Halifax and Prudential have all retracted advertisements after they appeared on a group in support of the British National Party.


The internet is in itself a valuable resource for combating racism. It allows for global communication and information sharing. It can be a powerful tool in combating stereotypes, and can be used to bring together people looking for intercultural cooperation. The internet should continue to be used as a tool to create awareness raising networks agaist xenophobia across the world

But there is a flip side to the ease of dissemination of information afforded by the internet. Xenophobic groups can, have, and continue to spread messages of hate through the internet in ever-increasing amounts. This only further entrenches ideas of racial superiority.

The UN proposes several ideas to curb racist, stereotyping material on the internet, some of which is questionable.

The UN encourages mostly self-regulation. This is mostly in effect already, with sites like Youtube monitoring the content on the site. Some offensive material does get in, but most of it does not directly demean other races.

These used content-based sites often have no short supply of material that attempts to end stereotypes and promote tolerance.

However, the UN also promotes taking the battle into courtrooms, by encouraging nations to establish legal sanctions against the spread of racist content on the internet, and encourages prosecution of those who incite racial hatred.

We wonder if this is an affront on freedom of speech. Countries like Germany and France already have laws prohibiting hate speech and holocaust denial, but countries like the United States take up issue with limiting nonviolent speech.

The UN further encourages internet service providers to block access to offensive content. Should ISPs wield the power to decide what citizens can and cannot see on the internet? We believe it should be up to internet users to decide what content they wish to view, not an internet service provider.

This section ends with means on how racism can be combated with the internet. By examining the internet content that creates a positive good on global society, we can hope to replicate it, snuffing out malicious content.

The UN goes further in saying that media content should reflect the diversity of many societies, with adequate representation of all cultures.

We question how well prosecution of those who spread malicious content will work in combating racism. No government can prosecute all racists, nor can they track the all the sources of racist content in a medium so convoluted and vast as the internet. It is on shaky moral ground, suggesting that the ends, theoretically cutting off racists from dissemination of their ideas, justify the means, limiting freedom of speech.

But the programme of action makes it clear that this ethical dilemma can easily be avoided. There is so much positive content on the internet. By looking at the content that really encourages tolerance and even acceptance, that content can be replicated. By increasing the positive content on the internet, its message can be augmented. The internet has the potential to be a means of massive social change.