Fluent Essays

This chapter presents issues unique to the United States. As a fundamental stumbling block, the First Amendment to the Constitution protects ALL speech - hate speech, slurs, lies, pornography, and much more. The ability to regulate speech that is offensive or harmful is difficult in the physical world. How can we regulate it in a world where the source is potentially unknown or far beyond our borders?s to an external site.)I found several great articles analyzing American attempts to regulate the internet - theyre long, technical and Ill share them with you but only if youre having trouble sleeping. On that basis, for this chapter, I take the same approach as in Chapter 6. Review the chapter and powerpoint materials and post a comment to the discussion board that picks one of the forms of harmful, illegal (highly dependent on nation and state of both the poster and viewer), or offensive content listed that you view as the most harmful, illegal, or offensive and explain why in three to five sentences. As with Chapter 6, you only need to post once BUT, look ahead to the last chapter for the written assignment that spans this weeks set of chapters. yar___steinmetz07.pdf Unformatted Attachment Preview Cybercrime and Society, Third Edition © Majid Yar & Kevin F. Steinmetz Chapter 7 Illegal, harmful and offensive content online Introduction • The Internet (positive): a powerful medium for free speech and open communication – Political and social value of the Internet • The Internet (negative): online content that may be illegal, or deemed offensive and harmful to individuals, communities, or the social fabric • Examination of two forms of online content – Discriminatory “hate speech” content – Representations of sexually offensive content (e.g. “hardcore” and violent pornography) 3 Discussion • Why does the Internet offer advantages to those wishing to propagate hateful ideas and ideologies? 4 Thinking about “hate speech” • Emergence of “hate speech” in recent decades in various historical and political contexts – Germany and the political and cultural trauma of Nazism and anti-Semitism – UK and post-war immigration from British Commonwealth countries – French and the migration from colonial countries in North Africa – U.S. and the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s 5 Thinking about “hate speech” • In total, hate speech can be understood as speech which denigrates a person or group in a way that promotes violence or otherwise creates a hostile environment on the basis of a variety of characteristics 6 Thinking about “hate speech” • Universal legal and institutional action against hate speech – challenging – E.g. Western countries and debates over regulation of language • Harms from hate speech can be understood in two ways: – To incite and condone acts of violence and discrimination against target populations – View that hate speech is intrinsically harmful to target populations 7 Understanding the harms of hate speech • Its ability to incite and condone acts of violence and discrimination against target populations • U.S. law – Punishable if threats of violence express intent to commit an act of violence against an individual or group • UK law – The Race Relations Act (1965), the Public Order Act (1986), and the Serious Organised Crime and Police Act (2005) 8 Understanding the harms of hate speech • View that hate speech is intrinsically harmful to target populations – Undermining of selfhood and violations of human dignity – Feelings of fear, intimidation, and being threatened 9 Forms of hate speech – Websites • Websites established by organized political groups – Typically far right, white supremacist/neo-Nazi orientations – Rise of the “Alt-Right” (hateful towards Blacks, Jews, Muslims, women, LGBTQ+, etc.) – Notable online hate website – Stormfront • What is deemed “hateful content”? • Proliferation of current hate websites and groups – From marginal to mainstream sources 10 Forms of hate speech – Websites • Advantages to hate groups – Cost-effective means of communication – Affords speakers reduced risks of identification and prosecution – Bypasses the difficulties of finding conventional venues – Tailor messages to audiences open to be influenced • Capturing the attention of young people – E.g. “Pepe the Frog” or “Sad Frog” meme 11 Forms of hate speech – E-mail and social media • Threats over e-mail – E.g. Richard Machado, the “Asian hater” – Emotional damage of victims • Social media and the meme culture – E.g. Elliot Rodger and his YouTube video – “Incel” culture • Social media – important medium for dissemination of hate speech 12 Forms of hate speech – Social media • Dissemination of online anti-Muslim hate speech – Basis: Muslims threaten the way of life of non-Muslims – Source: mostly far right groups – E.g. Facebook groups • Dissemination of anti-Semitic/anti-Jewish hate speech – Forms of hate speech o Expressions of hatred o Anti-Semitic symbols o Calls for violence 13 Legal, policing and political challenges • Criminalization of hate speech – controversial • Notable challenges in censoring hate speech – Difficulty in defining what is “hateful” or “discriminatory” – Safeguarding the Internet’s free expression o The “answer to bad speech is more speech” (Doctorow, 2008, p. 2) – Global nature of the Internet – Variation in transnational hate crime laws o E.g. various European hate groups relocating their websites 14 Legal, policing and political challenges • U.S. hate sites and free speech – The First Amendment and its exception: serious and imminent threat of violence against identifiable persons, or directly incites others – The U.S. largely, however, is somewhat of a “safe haven” 15 Legal, policing and political challenges • Online culture and “trolling” – Making annoying or disruptive online comments/behaviors (Mantilla, 2015) – Related to “flaming” (Mantilla, 2015) – Reached maturity through 4chan and Reddit – The nature and grey area of trolling (e.g. Anonymous and Scientology) • Case study: Andrew Auernheimer 16 Growth and popularity of Internet porn • Earliest of explicit imagery – “Venus of Willendorf” • Growth of the commercialization of sexual images – Print → photography → motion pictures (accessibility) • Growth in the West – E.g. Playboy, Penthouse, and Hustler • Technological catalyst: video tape, cable, and Internet • Pornography as a billion-dollar industry 17 Growth and popularity of Internet porn • Two reasons why porn is a prominent online feature – Consistent feature of human culture – Development alongside technological advancements • Distribution of porn in the 1970s and 1980s – Massively enhanced with the expansion of the Internet • Critical role of Internet pornographers as profit-making entrepreneurs – Pioneers of early e-commerce technology • The sheer enormity of online pornography 18 Discussion • Should fantasy representations of “sexual violence” be criminalized, or ought they be recognized as a legitimate form of sexual self-expression? 19 Legal issues relating to Internet porn • General issue – definitional and moral questions • Criminological issue – boundary between porn and obscenity • Defining obscenity in the age of the Internet – Intention to deprave and corrupt – Potential definitional issues • The banning of “extreme” pornography – Challenges in achieving a social consensus 20 Legal issues relating to Internet porn • U.S. – obscene, indecent, and offensive speech – Link between porn and sexual violence • Attempts to remove First Amendment protection for indecent and offensive speech – failed – Obscene material and the Miller test – Difficulties of establishing “community standards” online • Legal pluralism and transnational definitions of obscenity – E.g. Saudi Arabia’s Internet access 21 Legal issues relating to Internet porn • Fear of children being exposed to adult content – “The Great Cyberporn panic of 1996” (Zimmer & Hunter, 1999, p. 11) – Demographics of individuals searching for content • Legislative attempts – U.S. – Communications Decency Act (CDA) o Criminalization of the involvement in obscene or indecent imagery of children o Shot down by U.S. Supreme Court o Successful legislation – Children’s Internet Protection Act (CIPA) in 2003 22 Legal issues relating to Internet porn • Overall failure of statutory regulation → voluntary regulation • Commercial availability of filtering packages – Criticisms o Vary in quality o Tendency to “over-filter” o Ineffective in filtering alternatives (e.g. P2P file sharing) • UK’s Digital Economy Act of 2017 – Critiques and challenges 23 ... Purchase answer to see full attachment