November 11,
1998 Rights
Group Develops 'Hate' Filter By PAMELA MENDELS ![[I]](ADLitems/i.gif) n
an unusual move, a prominent non-profit
human rights group has developed and will
sell to the public an Internet filter that
blocks access to several hundred Web sites
that it has determined advocate
bigotry.
The group, the Anti-Defamation
League, unveil the device, aimed at
parents and called the ADL HateFilter, at
its annual national meeting in Boston
Wednesday morning. The venture is unusual because until
now most Internet filters have been
created and marketed by companies. And
although many of those products allow
users to block access to sites espousing
intolerance, the devices are used most
commonly to screen out online
pornography. The ADL filter bans sites that preach
anti-Semitism, racism, homophobia and
other forms of bigotry. Among the
off-limits Web pages are Ku Klux Klan
sites; the anti-gay Westboro Baptist
Church's "God Hates Fags" site and the
white supremacist Aryan Nations site.  Abraham
H. Foxman, national director of the
Anti-Defamation League, said the group had
undertaken the project to bring the
85-year-old organization's experience in
fighting anti-Semitism and other forms of
prejudice to the Internet. He said the
group "stands with a certain reputation
and credibility on this subject" that
for-profit filtering companies do not
have.
Foxman said many hate Web sites employ
sophisticated Internet technology, like
video and animation, that could appeal to
young people. And the fact that the sites
appear on a screen gives the hate messages
"a certain patina of credibility," Foxman
asserted, adding that Web sites are more
insidious than earlier forms of hate
propaganda, because they enter households
unbidden. "Hate out there is rampant," he said.
"You used to have to make an effort to get
hate. Now it comes into your home
unsuspected." Nonetheless, the ADL filter could well
spark renewed debate about the flaws of
filters and, more fundamentally, whether
the devices are appropriate shields from
offensive material online or high-tech
censorship. Karen G. Schneider, a librarian
who has written a book about filters, said
she believed the ADL effort was misguided,
because, in her view, it sought to fight
prejudice with an electronic version of
eye-averting. "I find it disturbing that the
Anti-Defamation League thinks that the way
to prevent anti-Semitism is to hide it
from the people who care about
anti-Semitism," she said, adding later:
"There's nothing to make a bad idea look
silly like putting it out in the cold,
hard light of day." But Foxman said it was appropriate for
concerned parents to try to keep hate
speech from their doorstep. "If I as a
parent decide I don't want access to this
or I don't want my child to have access to
this, that's not censorship, that's
exercising my constitutional right," he
said.  Foxman
added that the filter, which can be
downloaded from an ADL Web site, is aimed
at homes and parents, but could end up
being used by others, too. "If a teacher
decides to use it in the context of a
school, that's their business," he
said.
|
The list of banned sites was put
together, and will be updated, by a team
at the ADL, which has been monitoring hate
sites on the Internet for several years,
and published reports on the subject. But as of Tuesday, the device was not
foolproof. When a user working on a
computer with the filter running tried to
reach three sites likely to be caught by
the filter -- a Klan site, a skin-head
site and a neo-Nazi site -- her access was
blocked. But when she tried to reach a
white nationalist site called rahowa, an
acronym for "racial holy war," although
she was denied entry to most of the site,
she was still able to view the group's
home page. It contained a crude joke about
about Matthew Shepard, the gay
college student killed in Wyoming last
month. Mark A. Edelman, a spokesman for
the group, said that should not have
happened, and that he would look into the
matter. Shortly thereafter the user was
unable to reach the rahowa home page. Jonathan Wallace, one of the
founding members of the Censorware
Project, a group that opposes
filtering, argued that filtering
technology is still so crude that it is
always imperfect, and that it ends up
either blocking legitimate material,
missing objectionable sites or both.
"People market these products as if they
protect a child 100 percent," he said.
"What if it protects a child 40
percent?" Foxman conceded that there could be
flaws with filters, but he defended the
device, saying, "It's still better than
not having anything." When the filter is in place, a user who
tries to call up a proscribed site instead
sees a page that says: "Hate Zone. Access
Restricted." There is also a button that,
if pressed, transports the user to an
ADL "Stop Hate" Web site
with information about bigotry. The filter rests on technology
developed by Cyber
Patrol, a popular filtering product
made by the Learning Company in Cambridge,
Mass. It costs $29.95 for the first three
months, and another $29.95 for every
year's use thereafter. An ADL spokeswoman
said the fee was meant to offset the costs
of developing and maintaining the filter,
not to generate a profit.
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Pamela Mendels at
[email protected]
welcomes your comments and
suggestions. |
Posted Wednesday,
November 11, 1998
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