huridocs-tech Hate Groups Target Children and Women Online

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## author     : favnet@otd.com
## date       : 21.06.99
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New York Times
June 22, 1999
By PAMELA MENDELS

Hate groups are slowly but increasingly using the World Wide
Web to appeal to women and children, according to a report
by the Anti-Defamation League, an organization that fights
bigotry and has been monitoring the use of the Web by hate
groups since 1995.

The report, which is scheduled to be posted Wednesday on the
Web site of the New York-based group, found that in the past
two years, hate sites have added special pages aimed at
broadening their influence.

"It's a way to bring people into the movement," said Jordan
B. Kessler, the author of the report, "Poisoning the Web:
Hatred Online."

Sites aimed at teen-agers, in particular "skinhead" pages
featuring music with a white supremacist message, have been
around for several years. Three sites found in the group's
survey, however, were clearly aimed at a younger crowd,
Kessler said.

One, found at the site of the World Church of the Creator, a
white supremacist group, features a coloring book and a
crossword puzzle for children with a clue that includes a
crude reference to blacks. Meanwhile, at Stormfront, the
self-described "white nationalist resource page," there is a
"kids page" said to be written by a 10-year-old named Derek.

"I used to attend public school, where I learned from
first-hand experience the truth about race," the page says.
"Now I am in home schooling and I am learning a lot more
than I did when I was in public school. From this knowledge
I have decided to make this kids page to reach other kids of
the globe."

Another page, at a site put up by an anti-government white
supremacist group called Posse Comitatus, juxtaposes an
etching of a lynching captioned "It's time for old-fashioned
American justice" with a feature in which young people can
e-mail "Jeff," identified as a 14-year-old, for advice.
Kessler said he had also viewed about half-a-dozen sites
designed to appeal to women. Some urge them to take an equal
role with men in the fight for white supremacy.

The report discusses one site called "Her Race" which
included a feature on "careers for White Women," asking,
"What well-paying, interesting jobs could you choose that
would most advance your race?" The site is no longer on the
Web, Kessler said.

"Up until the Internet, hate groups had to limit themselves
to post-office boxes, brown wrappers and small rallies in
godforsaken places," said Abraham H. Foxman, national
director of the Anti-Defamation League. But the advent of
the Internet, he said, "has provided bigots with a
superhighway to cheaply and attractively reach millions of
people they couldn't reach before."

Several organizations monitor hate sites, including the
Southern Poverty Law Center and the Simon Wiesenthal Center.
It is difficult to estimate the total number of such sites
because the definition of a hate site varies from group to
group -- as does the definition of a "site."

The Southern Poverty Law Center, which excludes sites on
topics like bomb making that are included by the
Anti-Defamation League, found 254 hate sites in January of
this year, up from 163 in January 1998. The Anti-Defamation
League estimates there are between 500 and 600 sites that
meet its definition, Foxman said.

Although the number of sites has grown in recent years,
Foxman said he believes the rate of increase does not
outpace the growth of sites on the Web in general. Still, he
said, monitors are concerned about the sites because of
their ability to reach a huge audience of Web users. "The
growth is not explosive, but it's an accretion," he said.

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Related Sites

These sites are not part of The New York Times on the Web,
and The Times has no control over their content or
availability.


*  Anti-Defamation League
        http://www.adl.org/


*  Southern Poverty Law Center
        http://www.splcenter.org/

*  The Simon Wiesenthal Center
        http://www.wiesenthal.org/

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Pamela Mendels at mendels@nytimes.com welcomes your comments and suggestions.
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