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Facebook, YouTube Serving as Hot Spots for Hate Groups

by Lee Bains on November 19, 2008 at 12:36 PM



Ugh, the online thugs are at it again. Last week, YouTube executives have removed several videos that were made in tribute to the infamous Columbine school shootings of 1999 and the two boys who perpetrated them, the BBC reported.

In a recent investigative report, the BBC found that a small but thriving Columbine-obsessed community, both in the United States and Britain, was responsible for a large number of YouTube videos championing the Columbine shooters -- fan reenactments of the boys' own homemade videos were also found. After that BBC report brought these developments to the attention of YouTube executives, the offending videos, in clear violation of YouTube's terms of service, were promptly removed. Google UK executive Peter Barron explained, "We do not tolerate videos that glorify school shootings and have removed the videos that fall into that category".

Brian Rohrbough is relieved to see those videos taken offline. The father of Danny Rohrbough, a 15-year-old Columbine student who died in the shooting, Rohrbough told the BBC, "YouTube should maintain a certain degree of mortality." According to Rohrbough, this kind of violent insensitivity on the Internet "is the type of thing that our culture promotes."

This news comes at a time when Italian neo-Nazi groups have appeared on (and been removed from) Facebook and when experts are noting that Internet users are increasingly releasing their anger online. As lawyer Christopher Wolf, chair of the International Network Against CyberHate (INACH) and Internet law specialist, recently told the Global Summit on Internet Hate:"[These Web sites] are the 'killer apps' of the Internet today, and they're used by millions, but the virus of hate certainly has infected those technologies."

With such powerful communicative tools at our fingertips, what does it say about us that we so often use them to burn bridges instead of construct them? So today, let's all send a pleasant e-mail to a loved one who lives far away, or, better yet, invite somebody we haven't seen in a while over for supper. We can diffuse this anger, one gesture at a time. [From: BBC and News.com.au/AFP]

Tags: bbc, columbine, crime, facebook, hate groups, HateGroups, social networking, social-networking, SocialNetworking, trends, web, youtube

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