hate and web2.0: tweeting hate

Mark links to this post of tweets celebrating the assassination of Dr. Tiller, who was murdered in his church on Sunday because he provides abortions. The tweets are a bit sickening, I think.

I’ve read plenty of scholarly work on networking technologies that investigates how progressive groups use the Internet for networking and activism, but not how individuals use these technologies to express hate, or how hate groups organize through web2.0 technologies. Does such scholarship exist? I’m sure it does, but I haven’t read any.

I came across a Reuters article on hate groups, which discusses a report by the Simon Wiesenthal Center:

The report released on Wednesday noted a 25 percent rise in the past year in the number of “problematic” social networking groups on the Internet.

The report was based on “over 10,000 problematic Web sites, social networking groups, portals, blogs, chat rooms, videos and hate games on the Internet which promote racial violence, anti-semitism, homophobia, hate music and terrorism.”

Highlights of the report can be viewed here.

This entry was posted in Internet culture, New Media. Bookmark the permalink.

One Response to hate and web2.0: tweeting hate

  1. Ira Socol says:

    I’m pretty sure the Southern Poverty Law Center tracks online hate activities http://www.splcenter.org/index.jsp

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *