Internet Victim's Fund

Is anyone in favor of cyber hate? Is anyone in favor of hate online targeting people for their physical characteristics, age, sexual identity or religion? I doubt it.  So why does this type of abusive, exploitative, degrading content persist? The answer is simple, and basic to our current attitude toward the internet. Hate and falsehoods online are orders of magnitude easier to create than they are to challenge or remove. There are no mechanisms that level the playing field between facts and fictions, truth and falsehood, attack and defense. Hate and lies can take minutes to post, but days or months, if ever, to remove.

Some of the more responsible internet platforms, especially since the 2016 election, have instituted forms, programs, policies and departments to try and address the problem. But the problem is not just isolated to elections, and not just isolated to one platform.  Targeting of an individual or group is often cross medium and platform. When one channel or account is deleted, another backup account immediately takes over. This is all done with a few easy clicks. The only way for victims to fight this battle is with a massive investment of time by investigation, filing reports or civil lawsuits to gain information of the perpetrators. This all takes expertise, lawyers, and paperwork. All of which involves money.

The result of pushing back against multi-platform abuse, exploitation or targeting is that the victim is faced with a huge burden while the instigator may only have an account suspended, if at all. The few cases where there has been legal action represents a very small fraction of the real problem.

It is almost impossible to strike a balance between the posting and challenging of bad content. It is possible to give victims and targets of abuse a better set of tools to respond to bad situations. This must include offering experts, advocates and, when necessary financial support to oppose abusers and exploiters. Not all aggressive speech merits or requires punitive action, but for far too long we have failed to err on the side of the c=victim and given the victimizers almost free rein.

Once bad actors realize that anti-social, abusive, targeted, aggressively caustic and destructive behavior will be met with responses supported by industry and may involve serious consequences, then and only then will progress be made against cyber hate.