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.