New York, NY, February 28...Millions of Americans navigating the information super highway are being confronted by racist, anti-Semitic and other hate messages, a new report by the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) revealed today. According to The Web of Hate: Extremists Exploit the Internet, a growing number of extremist groups and individuals are using the new technology to spread their hate. To counter the propaganda and provide users with information to challenge the hatemongers, ADL has gone online with its own home page, and will continue to work with providers to see that user guidelines are met.

"Extremists are peddling their hate down a new road, the information super highway, and millions traveling that same road are unwittingly finding signs that lead them to sites filled with racist and anti-Semitic propaganda," said Abraham H. Foxman, ADL National Director. "Just a click on the mouse and you can find yourself in a place of vicious, violence-prone pernicious propaganda," Mr. Foxman added. "Peddling hate is not new, but being confronted with it as you sit in your home or office brings it to a new level. This is hate up close and personal; it is technology perverted."

ADL has developed a web site (www.adl.org) that will provide information to those seeking the tools to counteract the hate they encounter. "The challenge before us is how to deal with hate in this new and evolving environment," said Mr. Foxman. "As we move into the 21st century, we are committed to using the new technology to hold hatemongers up to public scrutiny, as we have been doing since 1913. To this end, we have established an Internet Monitoring Unit and an Online Information Service."

The Web of Hate: Extremists Exploit the Internet, documents who's who in the "Hate establishment" currently online. Among those cited are The KKK, Tom Metzger - WAR (White Aryan Resistance), The National Alliance, "Pastor" Pete Peters, Holocaust Deniers Ernst Zundel and Bradley Smith, The Aryan Crusade, Neo-Nazi Skinheads, and Resistance Records.

Joining the well-known bigots on the World Wide Web is "a new type of hater, young and computer literate," the report states. Among these "newcomers to the propagation of prejudice and hatred, initially independent of any organization...are college students who have unlimited access to the Internet through school facilities established to encourage the exchange of knowledge."

The Web of Hate contains graphics used by extremists, including Nazi symbols and caricatures of Black Americans, and unmasks the pseudo-scholarly, "library" and "religious" sites of bigots.

The 60-page report, The Web of Hate: Extremists Exploit the Internet is the second in a series of reports on hate in cyberspace. In November, 1995, ADL released Hate Group Recruitment On the Internet.

The Anti-Defamation League, founded in 1913, is the world's leading organization fighting anti-Semitism through programs and services that counteract hatred, prejudice and bigotry.