Hate Sites

Cyber Crimes

Over the past few years, there has been a rise in cyber crimes on the internet. Some of the crimes are invading a persons privacy by hacking into their computer systems, spreading computer virus on the internet and of course the very common computer crime, computer fraud. But recently there is a new cyber crime trend which is 'Hate Sites' which basically means a website that promotes hatred.

(source from: http://www.aic.gov.au/stats/crime/cybercrime.html)

Statistic of computer crimes in Australia

Does ethics exist in the World Wide Web?

There are different types of hate site that exist in the internet example hate sites dedicated towards Britney Spears, Jorge W. Bush and Saddam Hussein and there are other hates sites that contain religious discrimination. It was stated in Ananova website that Britney Spears has more hate sites when compared to Saddam Hussein. This is something unethical because they are giving negative reviews towards a specific person example Britney and asking other people to join in hatred.

(source from: http://www.angelfire.com/pop/theantibritney/)

Example of a 'Hate Sites'

According to Jeffery Long (Unruh 2007), the internet, which we use a tool of communication and knowledge has frequently being abuse and has become a vehicle of the worst human impulses, as reflected in the websites devoted to fomenting hatred and violence against a particular religion or ethnic groups. BBC news (2004) has also stated that net is being used by racist and extremist groups trying to recruit new members and spread their message. Hindu American Community had filed a report against Christian hate site which force its ministry at teaching Christians. This is ethically wrong because everyone has the right to choose their own beliefs

Hate Sites are morally and ethically wrong because the effects and message that they are sending to the people are not positive.

What can we do to prevent Hate Sites from spreading?

Computer are changing the way human makes decisions therefore we must decide when to trust computer and when not to trust them (Edgar 2003, pp. 1-8) because some of the information provided by the hate sites are not reliable. Discourse which means the way we speak associates with the values of the institution (Shirato and Yell 1996, pp.90-117) therefore hate sites should change the way they discourse their information into positive so that the viewers will have a good perception towards the websites. In my opinion, the other way to prevent this crime is that hosting providers which rents space for websites should check the distributing content and make sure that they remove the ones that contains offensive information.



Reference List:
1. Edgar, SL 2003, 'Introduction', Morality and Machines: Perspectives on Computer Ethics, 2nd edn, Jones and Bartlett Publishers,Inc, The USA, pp. 1-8

2. Internet driving hate site surge 2004, 20 April 2004 BBC news, viewed on 12 June 2008
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/3641895.stm

3. Schriver, T and Yell, S 1996, 'Framing Context', Communication and cultural literacy: An Introduction, Allen and Unwin, St. Leonards, N.S.W, pp. 90-117

4. Unruh, B 2008, 'Christian 'hate sites' blasted by Hindus', World Net Daily, viewed on 12 June 2008
http://www.wnd.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=55110