While it's a marvelous medium for education, communication, entertainment and commerce, the Internet has a dark side. Hate groups have emerged from the back alleys of the past to post their hateful ideas online, in full view of everyone, where they can hide behind their anonymity while spewing their hatred for a potential audience of thousands, if not millions. The Internet is a relatively cheap and highly effective way for hate groups as diverse as the National Alliance and the Ku Klux Klan, as well as anti-Semites, right-wing extremists, militia groups and others to propagate their hateful ideas.

What's more, it's becoming a powerful recruitment tool for these groups. Where the activities of hate groups once were limited by geographical boundaries, the Internet allows even the smallest fringe group to spread hate and freely recruit members online by tapping into the worldwide audience that the Web provides. Technology also offers such groups the ability to post messages in chat rooms and communicate like never before.

Recently, the Anti-Defamation League, which is at the forefront of tracking this trend of hate online and exposing the phenomenon in numerous reports, has responded to several incidents where hatred and bigotry has found its way onto mainstream Internet portals. For instance, the ADL recently fielded dozens of complaints about the presence of hate "clubs" on Yahoo, one of the Internet's most popular sites. Dozens of hate groups had established "clubs" in plain view on Yahoo's servers. In this case, ADL and Yahoo were able to work together to pull the plug on these haters, resulting in the company's removal of some of the most offensive clubs because they stood in violation of the site's terms of service agreement, which clearly prohibits hate speech.

This was one instance where it was possible to rein in white supremacist and racist groups from spreading racism and bigotry. But in the vast majority of cases, online hate speech remains protected under the First Amendment. Hate speech and the many varied forums available on the Internet for the exchange of information have opened up a new set of legal quandaries. Many of the thorniest issues surrounding hate speech ultimately will be decided in the courts.

Assessing the Problem Hate on the Internet

Hate is pervasive on the Internet, and it takes many forms. Through its Internet Monitoring Unit, the ADL has documented literally hundreds of hate groups that maintain a web presence. The ADL's report "Poisoning the Web: Hatred Online" noted that these groups have become increasingly sophisticated in their approach. Many hate sites are being specifically designed to ensnare children.

The virulently anti-Semitic and racist World Church of the Creator, for example, has in the past maintained a "Kid's Page" complete with apparently harmless color graphics, crossword puzzles and games. A closer look revealed the games were laced with racist and anti-Semitic themes.

The World Church of the Creator also posts membership applications and disturbing images, such as a graphic of a skinhead crushing a Hassidic Jewish man, with blood dripping from the giant fist. These hateful images are hardly an isolated phenomenon, nor are they banished to the farthest fringes of the Web. Any computer user can unwittingly land at a hate site by typing a few keywords on a search engine. Indeed, many hate sites are barely a click away, making it easier than ever for hate groups to prey on unsuspecting computer users, especially children.

While many hate sites are blatantly racist or bigoted in their approach, other sites disguise themselves as legitimate sources of information. There's one site that appears to be an examination of the life of the civil rights leader, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Any student doing research on Dr. King who might happen upon this site could be duped into believing this is a legitimate history. Scrolling down, the trained observer notices that it really contains racist propaganda from the National Alliance.

The Internet has also become a haven for Holocaust Deniers, who dispense anti-Semitism through distorted conceptions of modern history.

The Internet may also provide some hate groups with sources of revenue. The National Alliance, one of the most dangerous organized white supremacist groups in the United States, recently purchased a nearly defunct hate music record label and revived it, taking advantage of the unsurpassed power of the Internet with a newly designed web site designed to sell hate music to the masses. The Resistance Records Web site enables the record label to hawk its wares while spreading the word about the hate movement to a new generation of potential recruits.

Internet Hate Speech and the Law

All of this raises the question, what should be done about this spread of hate through cyberspace? Most people, when they are presented with the scope of the problem say, "There ought to be a law." That certainly was the reaction of Congress when it enacted the Communications Decency Act, which dealt not only with pornography, but also with some extremist groups, but the U.S. Supreme Court subsequently ruled that the Act was overly broad. Other attempts to regulate the Internet in the United States have virtually all been struck down because of the same reason. It's very hard to create a prohibition or a prescription against the free flow information. You have to deal with hate speech in other, more creative ways.

One method available to individual computer users is to deny the bigots access to home computers. ADL has developed a HateFilter, which is designed for parents to use in home computers to filter out some of the most offensive hate sites. The software is primarily intended for use as an educational tool. It blocks access to sites and redirects the user to information about hate groups at the ADL home page.

There are legal remedies, however, when hate speech crosses the line into threats and intimidation. Under the law, threats are not protected under the First Amendment. This applies to threats involving racial epithets or those motivated by racial animus. A threatening private message sent over the Internet to a victim, or even a public message displayed on a web site describing intent to commit acts of racially motivated violence, can be prosecuted under the law. Similarly, harassing speech is not constitutionally protected because the speech in question usually amounts to impermissible conduct, not just speech.

Both harassment and threats must be directed at specific individuals. Blanket statements expressing hatred of an ethnic, racial or religious group cannot be considered harassment, even if those statements cause emotional distress.

Another unprotected activity is incitement to violence. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in the case of Brandenburg v. Ohio that there is a line between speech that is "directed to inciting or producing imminent lawless action..." and speech that is not likely to incite such action. Still, the Brandenburg standard is a high bar to meet. Online hate speech will rarely be punishable under this test.

Likewise, the concept of "group libel" -- comments directed toward Jews, blacks or any other religious or racial group -- cannot be used as a weapon against haters who spew invective online or off. The courts have repeatedly held that libel directed against religious or racial groups does not create an actionable offensive. Libel on the Internet directed toward a particular person or entity, of course, is actionable under the law just as libelous remarks uttered in any public forum.

While hate speech online is not in itself punishable, it may provide evidence of motive in a hate crime case. Forty-two states and the District of Columbia currently have some form of a hate crime law on the books that enable prosecutors to seek increased penalties when a victim is targeted in a bias crime. When hate speech on the Internet inspires violence, the evidence could aid the prosecution in seeking an increased penalty under the hate crimes statute. While this concept has only been applied to movies thus far, there have been an increasing number of crimes being committed by perpetrators who read hate literature online. The racially motivated shooting of blacks, Asian-Americans and Jews in suburban Chicago over July Fourth weekend in 1999 was carried out by a member of World Church of the Creator, Benjamin Nathaniel Smith, who, according to law enforcement officials, has admitted to reading hate literature online. There have been similar cases where perpetrators of hate crimes have found inspiration in literature easily obtainable on the Internet.

Even with laws against intimidating speech, the anonymity of the Internet makes it difficult to track down and prosecute perpetrators of threatening messages. This proved true in a recent case involving a Detroit boy who received a barrage of anti-Semitic death threats in his mailbox. The 11-year-old, who innocently stumbled upon a hater while surfing through a public chat area, immediately reported the incident to his parents, who notified the local police. Not surprisingly, their investigation turned up few clues as to the source of the anonymous threats. Eventually, it was determined the source was disguised, quite possibly outside of the country, and obviously well beyond the reach of local authorities.

Yet there have been other successful prosecutions against senders of hate mail. A student at the University of California in Irvine who transmitted threatening e-mails to Asian students was caught and convicted of a civil rights violation. There have been other convictions.

Still, the law isn't always a panacea to hate. The best antidote to hate speech, ADL maintains, is more speech. Public awareness of hate on the Internet, whether through reports and studies or media coverage, can go a long way to help sensitize the public, private Internet companies, and government regulators to the problem.

A summary of groundbreaking cases involving online hate speech and a legal analysis of issues relating to hate on the Internet is available in the ADL report, "Combating Extremism in Cyberspace: The Legal Issues Affecting Internet Hate Speech."

Internet Service Providers A Link to Hate

While most Internet access providers have policies that regulate offensive speech, most do not ban hate speech outright. Some providers cite their First Amendment rights as reason enough not to interfere with content on their servers.

For some web sites, regulating content remains a work in progress. Today, Internet providers such as America Online have clear guidelines regulating what is acceptable and what is not acceptable behavior on their servers. An AOL subscriber can lose privileges simply because of a complaint from another user. AOL and others have worked closely with ADL to respond responsibly to hate on their servers.

But some Internet service providers have been less willing to establish firm policies against hate speech, citing the First Amendment in their defense. For example, Earthlink of Pasadena, Calif., states in its "acceptable use policy" that the site "supports the free flow of information and ideas over the Internet" and does not actively monitor the content of web sites it hosts. Although Earthlink makes clear that illegal activities are not permitted on its site, that one caveat didn't stop the neo-Nazi web site "For Folk and Fatherland" from establishing a home page through Earthlink. The web site reprints Hitler's "Mein Kampf" and more than two dozen of Hitler's speeches. It's not illegal activity, but the message is clearly hateful.

Those hate groups that do find trouble gaining access to mainstream Internet service providers can turn to one of a number of renegades of the Web, hate institutions such as Don Black's "Stormfront." Since becoming the first hate site to go live in 1995, "Stormfront" has leapt into the business of hosting extremist sites, describing itself as "an association of White activists on the Internet whose work is partially supported by providing webhosting for other sites." At least one extremist bumped from a mainstream online service has taken refuge on Black's server. Alex Curtis' "Nationalist Observer" site, once hosted by America Online, now resides at "Stormfront." The implication is clear: No matter how many mainstream Internet providers rebuff the bigots, those determined enough to establish a racist site will be able to find a willing host.

Conclusion: Hate A Growing Problem on the Internet

Combating online extremism presents enormous technological and legal difficulties, and as noted earlier, the few examples provided here are only the tip of the iceberg. Even if it were electronically feasible to keep sites off the Internet, the international nature of the medium makes legal regulation virtually impossible. And in the United States, the First Amendment guarantees the right of freedom of speech regardless of what form that speech takes.

As a result, governments, corporations and people of goodwill continue to look for alternative ways to address the problem.