Spread Hate And Discrimination On The Internet

1043 Words5 Pages

Since the World Wide Web was introduced to the world in 1990 by computer scientist Tim Berners-Lee, the Internet has changed in many ways, but also remained the same in certain aspects. It is remains as a platform where members of the global community can interact with anyone, anywhere; given they have an online connection as stated in the article “The Internet and Global Rights” by Lloyd Axworthy. However, while there may be numerous benefits of the Internet, the World Wide Web has greater potential for evil because it can be used as a weapon to expose people’s personal information, exploit and prey on children, and create discrimination.
From the moment you have access to the Internet, you are warned of the risks of being part of the online …show more content…

In a similar fashion, the Internet can be utilized as a tool to spread hate and discrimination on a variety of topics. Members of such pages, blogs, and sites dedicate time and effort to spread hate and voice their negative opinions. Moreover, the members of hate groups can now completely avoid the risk of meeting in public. In the past, whenever hate groups wanted to gather, they had to choose a location and be discrete about it. However, a discrimination group could be conversing about negative topics at the moment and no one would realize. The Internet has provided a cover and mask for cyberbullies and members of society who would otherwise be too scared to speak their negative thoughts in real life. To illustrate, an individual may have spent a countless amount of time working on something they are proud of, only to be belittled by a disheartening comment left by someone they have never met before. Axworthy, author of the article “The Internet and Global Human Rights” believes and states that there should be rules governing the Internet: “The Internet should not be a law-free-zone” (Axworthy 180). While this statement is true, it is only carried out to a certain extent. Anything that is a crime in the real world should be a crime online. The fact is that there is too many tasks for the cyber crime divisions of the government to handle. For every blog dedicated to hate speech that is taken down, another can be put up. The Internet is a tool. What the tool executes, whether for good or for evil, is up to people who hold the tool in their

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