Cyberhate - An endless fight that must never be lost

There was a time Cyberhate manifest itself almost exclusively on a limited number of marginal websites, a laughably small number by today’s standards. Largely insignificant websites, even in their own time.  None-the-less, it was there from the first days of the internet.

Extremists and malcontents realized immediately that the new medium was like a fertile plot of soil waiting for weeds to take hold. They invested the time and energy to explore all of the possible ways they could make the best of an unregulated and unsupervised communication channel. 

In that way, little has changed, but everything else has.

There have always been dedicated haters. There always will be racists and xenophobes who reflexively hate what they don’t understand. They permeate human history. Their raw, unbridled hate may be easy to recognize for the desperate destructive thrashing about it is, but that does not mean it is easy to control.

More and more we are seeing agenda based hate. Where, for example  someone expressing a desire for gun control is abused on the basis of their assumed religion, political affiliation, possible ethnicity or anything but the issue that has triggered the abuse. Jews attacked for the actions of the distant Israeli government, all blacks criticized for crime, all Muslims berated for terrorists activity and on and on. It is as if, for many people, speaking their true hate is not acceptable. This is perhaps, because on examination, the true hateful sentiments are the old hates.  

Worst of all is when hate is accepted as dialogue. Normalization of hateful language is surely the soundtrack to the story of civilizations collapse. This is certainly what happened in World War II. In language, losing our ability to coherently express our hopes, fears, aspirations and anxieties is like physically evolving away from having thumbs.

Compounding the problem is the pace of technology. Our tools have advanced faster than we have. With each new development the potential for exploitation and abuse is reborn. We have not yet seen hateful messages appear randomly on Smart TVs, Fitbits or Smart Refrigerators, but the Internet of Things, and whatever comes next will surely bring new abuses. One of those abuses will surely be Cyberhate.

We have fallen too far down the rabbit hole to simply climb out. Our current position is generations in the making. The internet has only made it obvious where we are.  Enduring tools, programs and havens for policy and philosophy are needed. The real fight against hate online may take as long to undo as it has taken to get us here.  We may never completely defeat cyberhate, but we can never stop trying. 

 

Anything online, left alone long enough, will be abused.

Mark Zuckerberg is not the devil. I don't believe he has a malicious bone in his body. That is his problem.

If he had even the slightest inclination to abuse people with his creation,  he wouldn't have his current problem, and we wouldn't have ours. The same goes for Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat and most of the other apps and platforms. All were convinced in the blissful ignorance that a grand idea empowering people would allow the best in society to prevail. They didn't see that the deck was stacked against them from the start.

There was internet before Facebook. It was all founded on the same boundless optimism. That electronic Garden of Eden started growing weeds on day one.  In 1995, when the commercial internet was launched, we got Amazon, eBay and Craigslist. It also brought us websites from the Klu Klux Klan and Stormfront (the grand daddy of all hate websites), followed soon after by the National Socialist Movement, white supremacist and violent extremist groups. Hate websites also emerged appealing to white women with recipes and family tips as well as targeting their children with printable racist coloring books. All before Facebook, Twitter and even Google.

 By 2005-2006 when web 2.0, user generated content, Facebook, Twitter and others emerged, it was already too late. The roots of hate had already grown deep in the internet. With each new development; email, mobile technology, interactive gaming, instant messaging, video chat, podcasts and blogging, optimism sprung anew.  We resisted looking at these wonderful advancements through the darkest lenses of possible abuse. However, malice waded in with glee.

History has shown us that every major advance has been subject to abuse - the printing press, the radio, television, phone and fax machine.  The internet is no different. All their inventors felt they were making a wonderful contribution. I envy and respect those who retain their boundless optimism and blissful ignorance. We need them. And they need those of us who credibly and professionally work to see it all... realistically.

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