GENEVA - The number of Internet hate sites has nearly doubled to 600 in just a year, an official of the Simon Wiesenthal Center told a global conference on racism on the Internet today.
Marc Knobel of the Los Angeles-based center said online hate propaganda has become a growth area with racists freely communicating in cyberspace. He noted, however, that the increase in virtual hate has not triggered a corresponding rise in hate-motivated physical attacks.
"These sites are promoting racism and inciting terrorism. It takes little money to create them. They are trash," Knobel told the UN-sponsored conference. In a suggestion that has won some backing in Europe and elsewhere but virtually no support in the United States, he urged Internet service providers to take responsibility for quashing offensive material.
The Geneva conference of human rights activists, government officials, and industry representatives is debating how and whether to restrict racism on the Internet in compliance with an international treaty banning racial discrimination.
Among the 600 sites identified by the Wiesenthal Center, which gained fame as an information clearinghouse for Nazi hunters, were 35 mostly US-based sites run by militia groups advocating armed struggle, 94 that sought to establish a racial hierarchy, 87 neo-Nazi sites, 35 white supremacist sites, and 51 sites openly advocating terrorism.
In one example, Knobel cited a site which had two little boxes: one marked "sub-humans" and another "Aryans."
A visitor clicking on the "sub-human" box was led to a virtual "Auschwitz" while those opting for the "Aryan" box were provided with racist documentation and advice.
The site signed off with the message "Death to the Jews" and offered links to similar sites.
Knobel said the site, located in France, was recently shut down by the service provider because of its content, but soon reappeared on another service provider in Canada.
"We are constantly dealing with this devil," Knobel said. "When a service provider is aware of the fact that they are transporting illicit content, they must find a solution."
Most extremist groups with Web sites, like the Ku Klux Klan, Aryan Nations, and Skinheads, operate out of the United States.
One US site identified by Knobel promised to teach keen Web surfers, with the aid of graphics and drawings, 218 ways to make a bomb - tennis ball bomb, napalm bombs, letter bombs, underwater bombs, smoke bombs and "bomb in a cigarette pack."
Geneva meeting participants say global curbs are unlikely anytime soon because technology is changing faster than the efforts to police it. Another significant factor: the US First Amendment tradition that has, over the past two centuries, created a wider and wider zone for free expression.
