Anonymous hate speech that targets Jews and other groups is spreading through social media, the Internet and online video gaming — presenting new and dangerous ways to spread anti-Semitism, panelists told a House of Representatives subcommittee.
The April 14 hearing, titled “Combating Anti-Semitism: Protecting Human Rights,” looked at the spread of hate speech through social networking sites, alongside other concerns.
Hannah Rosenthal, the State Department’s special envoy to combat and monitor anti-Semitism, favored “positive talk” as a means of combating the hate, while some Jewish groups said using legal means to remove the incitement was the better way to go.
Rabbi Abraham Cooper, associate dean of the Simon Wiesenthal Center and one of the panelists, said that rather than countering hate speech with positive speech, companies should enforce their policies on hate speech.
Working with companies to remove sites that violate the terms of agreement has been successful, he said, noting a positive relationship with Facebook, which has 400 million users.
Cooper showed the panel anti-religion and anti-Semitic websites, including a Facebook page called “Zionism Terminator,” and spoke of suicide bomber games and others in which the player commits atrocities such as gunning down Haitian survivors.
Game companies, meanwhile, have been having their own conversations about ways to tone down and combat the rhetoric in online gaming. Many players exchange hate speech over their headsets as they stalk each other across the virtual battlefields, trading a flurry of racist, homophobic and anti-Semitic insults.
One gamer told an opponent he presumed to be Jewish that he wished Hitler had succeeded in his mission. Many exchanges involve talk of rape or exult over the atomic bombing of Japan. There are frequent slurs on homosexuals, Asians, Hispanics and women.
Parents may not realize their children are constantly exposed to such language. Most parental concerns have focused instead on violence.
Such comments can be heard on all online video gaming systems, including Microsoft’s XBox Live, PlayStation Network, Blizzard Entertainment (World of Warcraft) and others.
“Personally, I don’t do a lot of online gaming for that reason,” said Flynn DeMarco, founder of gaygamer.net, which has worked with Microsoft and other companies on steps to clean up online gaming. “I don’t play with anybody I don’t already know.”
DeMarco said hate speech has been a problem for years. Game makers, despite some serious efforts, can only seek to limit the amount. “A lot of the problem lies within the players themselves,” he said.
The widespread use of the slurs is partly fueled by the same anonymity that provides cover for abuse throughout cyberspace.
Microsoft, maker of the XBox 360, has taken steps to clean up the language on its Live service, the biggest online gaming service with some 23 million members. The company also has created a website to give parents tools to help control their children’s gaming, www.getgamesmart.com.
But the notion of companies monitoring and cleaning up cyberspace is troubling to some.
Joan Bertin, director of the National Coalition Against Censorship in New York City, said she is uncomfortable with game makers serving as “nannies.”
“They respond occasionally and erratically and incompletely,” she said. “Some people who are doing what everyone else is doing get caught.”
The coalition, which works to protect First Amendment rights, does not generally endorse actions to limit speech, she said. “The use of taboo language has a lot of different functions and not all are evil. I don’t think pulling the cover over it and hiding it makes it go away.”
DeMarco said the best solution may just be continuing to educate people, especially parents of young gamers, about the problem. “I’d like to see parents being aware of what their kids are being exposed to,” he said.
Melissa Apter of JTA contributed to this report.