Censoring Hate Sites
In a free world, civil rights and liberties grapple with the problem of censoring and censuring free speech. Unfettered utterances that blaspheme, hurtful to people of faith, slanderous characterizations demonizing ethnic or cultural groups, vociferously-stated condemnations of ideologies that run counter to the values of those who criticize them are all guaranteed to a wide degree through civil liberties, a public audience.There have surely got to be some limits to free speech when the ease with which messages can be aired through the Internet make opportunities available to truly odious-minded, violence-intending groups whose purpose is to destabilize society at large through the vilification of certain groups of people, or the dissemination of a terror-inspired call to bloody violence on the other hand.
It's been well documented now that the Internet has become the tool of choice for Jihadists to spread their message of hatred and violence. Password-protected Internet sites where active terror groups have the opportunity to co-ordinate attacks, or encourage one another to acts of violence, or pass vital information leading to the potential success of jihadist actions have become the Achilles heel of international intelligence groups.
On a smaller, but yet socially destructive scale, disaffected youth around the world are now able to deliver their twisted messages of societal distrust and hatred, spreading psychopathic messages encouraging other youth to arm themselves. Young people who smother their psyches with a growing grievance against their societies are encouraged to enter schools and wreak their vengeance on their peers, leaving survivors and police wondering what they might have done to prevent the disaster.
Sexual predators, child molesters, pederasts, and lovers of pornography have a field day with the very real freedoms that posting messages and photographs on the Internet have rewarded them with. Those addicted to pornographic images, and those which show young children being violated run the gamut from respected social leaders, educated academics, hermetic loners, and the mechanic down the street.
Microsoft has allocated millions of dollars in the development of software in an attempt to work with intelligence agents and local police to try to halt the proliferation of such violations to human dignity, the mortal injuries done to children. It's a true rear-guard action. The Internet has become the Wild West of malfunctioning human beings spewing their messages of hate and destruction at will.
Of course there are some totalitarian societies for whom there is no issue at all with the Internet; they simply don't allow entry to it within their societies, shutting off access lest it contaminate their peoples' cerebral functioning through exposure to other types of opportunities; to learn about freedoms available elsewhere. In the process creating a situation of opposition by newly-informed citizens become critical about their state of oppression.
China is a case in point where Google has agreed to compliance in that country's demands that the service re-design its capabilities to better reflect China's imperatives that its people not have unfettered access to specific Internet sites. So that certain words in a search engine can trigger a function which will not permit access. Words that have become suspect in a country which seeks to protect its population from too great exposure to freedoms common in the West.
Where Google has not seen fit to accommodate itself to an outcry has been in the area of blatant anti-Semitic attacks on the Internet. At a conference on terrorism and anti-Semitism which took place in Herzliya, Israel, Google's Israeli-based director claimed righteously "We have a bias in favour of peoples' rights to free expression" in defence of Google's policy of spurning the prevention of hate sites being called up through search results.
It's a huge problem, to be certain. Where Microsoft has enlisted its corporate conscience in the fight against child-molesting pornography to the benefit of society at large, Google obviously feels no compulsion to sign on to an obligation to halt the spread of hugely discriminatory messages of distortion and hate.
Pity, that.
Labels: Anti-Semitism, Realities, Technology
posted by Pieface @ Thursday, November 15, 2007
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