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Rochelle Wilner |
Frank Dimant |
Prof. Stephen Scheinberg |
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Rochelle Wilner |
Frank Dimant |
Prof. Stephen Scheinberg |
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Kenneth McVay, Director, The Nizkor Project
The year 2001 witnessed a dramatic increase in the level of antisemitic activity on the Internet (the “net”), corresponding with the escalation of violence in the Middle East that began during the fall of 2000. The year 2001 also witnessed a similar increase in the level of anti-Israeli activity. These two types of activity are distinct phenomena though in certain cases they became, through the course of the year, almost interchangeable. Certainly, a considerable amount of antisemitic propaganda, linked to the Middle East conflict and emanating from the region, has been posted on the net and is being actively directed to Canadian shores.
A significant proportion of antisemitic activity on the net, however, is still generated by members and supporters of organized extremist groups, primarily racial supremacists, as characterized by the National Alliance (4). These groups use this medium as a potentially productive recruiting tool.
The Internet offers a variety of media, which the racial-nationalist movement can use as recruiting tools. These include UseNet, which now offers some 50-60,000 topical and interactive discussion groups (“newsgroups”), the World Wide Web (“the Web”), public and private chat rooms, public and private mailing lists, both interactive and read-only, and private electronic mail.
Although websites offer the most visible evidence of racial extremism on the net, and generate the highest level of controversy, some experts believe that their value as a recruiting tool is extremely limited, (5) in spite of their numbers. (6) This is probably because websites have failed to generate the sense of community required to provide validation and a sense of belonging among potential recruits.
A recent report by the Anti-Defamation League (7), however, demonstrates how the web is being used to distribute virulently racist material to a target market of young people. “Hate groups are manipulating available technology to create violently racist and anti-Semitic versions of popular video games,” the report explains, and “these manipulated games…can be previewed, purchased or downloaded on the Web sites of some of the nation’s most dangerous hate groups. These so-called ‘White Power’ games are advertised as ‘entertainment’ on extremist sites run by neo-Nazis, white supremacists and Holocaust deniers.” Resistance Records, the label of the virulently racist group, the National Alliance, is currently selling a new game called “Ethnic Cleansing,” that targets Jews, Blacks and Hispanics. This game uses the open-source game engine Genesis 3D. The ADL Report notes that “the makers of this software allow the game to be altered and sold as long as certain preconditions are followed, and Genesis 3D takes no responsibility for any alterations to the game”. Other White Power and neo-Nazi sponsored games have raised similar concerns, especially given the popularity of video games in general for children and youth whose sole content seems to be the pursuit of violence.
The video game “Under Ash”, (8) currently offered as a free download on an Arab website located in Torrance, California, involves the mass killing of Israelis and Jews. It demonstrates how comfortably the Arab world borrows the techniques of White Power and neo-Nazi groups in their antisemitic propaganda campaigns.
I have devoted most of this discussion to UseNet and its topical discussion groups, which I believe offer a more attractive recruiting venue, and which provide significantly more evidence of antisemitism. That is because their interactive nature allows activists (of any stripe) not only to advertise their organizations and websites, but also to engage in ongoing discussions, and indeed to initiate discussions about virtually any topic. It is easier to observe the impact of antisemitic and racist articles within these topical discussion groups, because of the interactive nature of the groups, while it is difficult, if not impossible, to gauge response to the violently racist games being offered on the web.
A common tactic is to publish articles containing highly controversial or shocking material, in order to publicize a hate group. Within hours of the terror attacks against the Pentagon and the World Trade Center, articles appeared blaming Israel and/or the CIA for the terrorism, and provided links to extremist websites — often the National Alliance, a group the Anti-Defamation League has called “the single most dangerous organized hate group in the United States today.” (9) The National Alliance is arguably the most aggressive group on the Internet. Transcripts of shortwave radio broadcasts by founder William Pierce are widely and regularly distributed.
The first appearance of overt hate propaganda on the Internet came during the winter of 1991-1992, when a young man from Portland, Oregon (10) began posting articles transcribed from material published by the Institute for Historical Review (IHR). (11) The IHR is a pseudo-academic organization dedicated to the promulgation of antisemitism, which uses Holocaust denial as a vehicle to disseminate hatred against Jews. Interestingly, a pro-Palestinian group at Montreal’s Concordia University, repeatedly disseminated material from the IHR alleging that Israel was devising an “ethnic bomb” that would only target Arabs and not Jews, as part of a propaganda campaign that purported to be solely directed against Israel. This demonstrates the interchangeability at times of “Israel” and “the Jews” in such propaganda.
This young man worked alone until 1994, publishing a stream of antisemitic material, and then he was joined by several American Holocaust deniers, including Friedrich Berg, (12) a German-born mechanical engineer living in the United States, Michael Hoffman II, (13) a supporter of Aryan Nations, David Duke lieutenant Don Black, (14), the founder of Stormfront (15) the first White supremacist website on the net, and others. Greg Raven, (16) who had been active on the Genie system during 1992 and 1993, made his presence known on UseNet in the spring of 1994. Raven was, and is, a prominent member of the Institute for Historical Review.
In retrospect, the young man’s lasting contribution to the Internet stemmed from the fact that he was simply obnoxious. His virulent racism generated strong opposition. By January of 1992, people actively confronting him on UseNet regularly communicated with each other and coalesced as a group. It was from this early co-operation that the Nizkor Project and, subsequently, the Holocaust History Project, (17) were born.
Canadian extremism has never played a significant role on the net, although a handful of Canadian racial-nationalists have been active from time to time. The reality, however, is that national origin has become meaningless; concepts like “geographic distribution of incidents” and “antisemitic incidents by region” have no validity in discussions concerning the net.
When a British Columbia man wrote: “The Holocaust if there was one is unique in many ways. Since the war was over the ‘Jewish Plaintiffs’ have actually Played the roll of prosecution, Investigators, Interrogators, Law Manipulators, Histories Manipulators, Money collectors like always, and News Media Manipulators, Film Industries Manipulators, All of this is the Holocaust industries,” (18) his comments became available to the worldwide Internet community. The same would have been true if a user in Zimbabwe had written the same words.
This is because access to the Internet is readily available to anyone, regardless of physical location. Canadians can now access information from areas that are functionally amalgamated into a single, stateless mass.
This reality presents realities that were not evident prior to the advent of the Internet as mass media. First, antisemitic material readily crosses national borders in digital form. Hate propaganda in the form of Holocaust denial, for instance, rarely found on Canadian-based websites, is readily available on non-Canadian servers. From the point of view of the casual Canadian on the net, physical location is meaningless. It must be stressed, therefore, that the Audit of Antisemitic Incidents in Canada all but omits this growing phenomenon of mass racism on the net and its potential to shape the consciousness of Canadians as no domestic manifestations have the capacity to do.
With the advent of readily available anonymous posting software, racial extremists no longer need concern themselves with laws designed to prevent the dissemination of hate propaganda. Those laws, rarely effective in any event, have become useless with respect to the distribution of hate material through anonymous remailers.
Flooding Canadian newsgroups with untraceable racist propaganda requires little more than the downloading and installation of any one of a wide selection of programs designed to insure anonymity, and anyone can do that with complete impunity.
User “Kanuk,” for instance, posts articles about purported Jewish domination of the Canadian government and media to Canadian newsgroups (typically alt.radio.networks.cbc, alt.tv.networks.cbc, can.general, and can.politics), but he posts from an American news system, sometimes promoting the National Alliance, an extremist group based primarily in the United States, and he does not identify himself as a Canadian.
His comments, however, show a familiarity with Canadian politics and the Canadian media:
“When Jean Chretien caved in to the powerful Jewish lobbies and appointed Robert Rabinovich to preside over all of the CBC, he knew of his links to known Zionists. He knew that the Jews wanted one of their own in charge to foist their evil agenda on Canadians. He also knew that the CBC would then be very helpful for his own career.” (19)
“Readers here will know that Jews control the media in much of the world. This is by design — not by chance. Media control is separate from ownership. Our public owned broadcasters are owned by our citizens but controlled by the Jews.”
“A couple of years ago Canada’s Prime Minister, Jean Chretien, caved in to the Jewish lobby and appointed Rabinovich as President of our Canadian Broadcasting Corp. Chretien knew Rabinovich was a Jew, and, further, a Jew with Zionist connections. He knew full well why the Jewish lobby wanted one of their own in control of the CBC. He knew the Canadian public would continue to be deceived on issues of interest to the Jews. But Chretien also knew he would get the Jews off his back and expect their media support for his career.” (20)
Complicating the question of what constitutes an “antisemitic incident” with respect to Canadians is the ease with which anyone can access topical Canadian discussion groups (UseNet) and chat rooms. Articles from an Alberta man, for instance, have included the following comments in articles posted to both Canadian and non-Canadian newsgroups: (21)
“I don’t want my pee pee mutilated.”; “Well, considering the size of a semitic nose, that is a tidy sum indeed…”; “Do you have information on how Council of Orthodox Rabbis kosher-certification earnings are distributed, as for example what proportion of them goes toward supporting the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians by the State of Israel…”; “As a zionist, you are a racist and apply racist techniques to my posts rather than address the issue.”; “If there is indeed a science of denial then zionists would be the first Nobel winners.”; “Pig meat is not allowed because that would be cannibalism.”; “The Ferengi of the Star Treck series were modelled after orthodox rabbinical organization where profit was god.”; “You’re sorry? If your dad ever heard about your stupidity he’d take the torah to your ass. What a moron. Are all zionists this stupid?”
Almost anyone in the world who enjoys a reliable connection to the net can post articles to Canadian newsgroups, and participate in conversations held in Canadian chat rooms. It is therefore easy for non-Canadians to subject Canadians to antisemitic and racist hate propaganda. In fact, the process is completely transparent. To complicate traditional concepts further, it is just as easy for Canadian extremists to provide antisemitic and racist propaganda to non-Canadian newsgroups and chat rooms.
These two simple facts make it virtually impossible to qualify such propaganda as “Canadian” or “not Canadian” with respect to Audit data. It is enough to say that Canadians can access Internet hate propanda regardless of source, and that Canadians can contribute such propaganda, regardless of destination.
It is also difficult, if not impossible, to develop meaningful human statistics with respect to Internet hate propaganda. This is because of the ease with which a single individual can post dozens (if not thousands) of racist and/or antisemitic articles throughout the net’s interactive areas while making it appear as if more than one person was responsible.
So, while one could observe a sharp increase in the quantity of antisemitic material being disseminated on the net following the start of the Intifada, it is impossible to determine how many people are responsible, or what their individual motives might be.
Someone posting verbatim newspaper articles critical of or condemning Israel’s response to Palestinian violence, for instance, cannot fairly be said to be distributing antisemitic material. Criticism of Israel is in any case not included in the Audit unless there is antisemitic content. However, if someone using the same identity also posts voluminous amounts of overtly racist, antisemitic hate propaganda, then his motivation can be read more clearly, as it is when the antisemitism is expressed as an exhortation to kill Jews, as in the video game “Under Ash” (22), offered as a free download on an Arab website located in Torrance, California. It is not possible to determine how many Canadians have availed themselves of the opportunity to download this game and have shared it with friends. One can only imagine what the long-term effects of interaction with such a game could be on the psyche of Canadian youngsters, and whether the values of our multicultural society will provide sufficient immunity to protect them against the virus of antisemitism that permeates this video game.
In terms of Canadian extremist activity on the net, the question of whether or not the legal system can have any lasting impact is a troubling one, and I believe it must be answered in the negative. The only effect, with the exception of Zündel, has been to drive Canadian extremists underground, where they utilize the Internet with anonymous impunity.
Although the Canadian Human Rights Commission established jurisdiction with respect to Mr. Zündel’s website, and validated complaints that Zündel placed “messages on the World Wide Web that were likely to expose a person or persons to hatred or contempt, on the basis that those individuals were identifiable on the basis of a prohibited ground of discrimination”, (23) contrary to law, and even issued a cessation order, the “Zündelsite” (24) continues to distribute its hate propaganda from abroad. The site has never missed a day online.
From a pragmatic point of view, the application of Canadian law to the Internet has failed to prevent the dissemination of hate propaganda. While the law has a dampening effect, in that Canadian-controlled hate sites are located in the United States rather than Canada, the hate mongers are still there, and their activities have been neither curtailed nor diminished.
According to a news release from the Government of Canada dated October 15, 2001, (25) the government, through its new Anti-Terrorism legislation introduced at the end of 2001, announced its intention to amend “…the Criminal Code to eliminate online hate propaganda and create a new offence of mischief against places of religious worship or religious property; and [amend] the Canadian Human Rights Act to extend the prohibition against hate messages beyond telephone messages to include all telecommunications technologies.”
Whether or not changes to the Criminal Code or the Canadian Human Rights Act will actually have an impact upon offshore hate sites operated by Canadian residents remains to be seen. It will probably come down to whether or not the political will exists to act. I suspect that the only lasting impact will be to drive activists further underground, and force them to employ greater stealth. In the end, it still comes down to political will — something lacking to date.
While the law has not proven to be an effective tool in dealing with distribution of online hatred, anti-racist activism has infuriated extremists to the point where they often respond with campaigns of overt defamation and intimidation.
In the most publicized example, American anti-racist Sara Salzman of Aurora, Colorado, has been subjected to a vicious series of threats and libels. The attack against Ms. Salzman (26), which began in early 2000, continues to this day. (27) While this is an American example, it has lessons for Canadians nonetheless, since it demonstrates the ability of extremists groups to use the power of the Internet to target individual and groups and still elude justice.
Salzman, a volunteer for the Canadian-based Nizkor Project, an online resource devoted to confronting and refuting the overt racism of Holocaust denial, has been threatened countless times. These threats have included violence, including sexual assault, torture, the use of her skin for lampshades, and physical threats directed at her husband and children.
Her address and telephone number have been repeatedly published on the Internet, along with the addresses and telephone numbers of her father and her neighbors. The intimidation also included the publication of photographs of what was claimed to be her home, along with a map including directions to her residence, and publication of numerous falsehoods about her, including accusations that she abuses her children, abuses drugs, and has sex with animals. As if that were not enough, specious and defamatory complaints have been filed with child protection agencies in Salzman’s community. Articles encouraging others to do the same have been published. Forged articles purporting to be from Sara’s 9-year-old daughter were posted in interactive sex discussion groups on the Internet. The articles solicited sex and accused Sara of forcing her daughter to engage in sex for money, and they included the daughter’s name and telephone number.
Death threats against racial supremacists were forged in Sara’s name. Death threats against President Clinton, e-mailed to the White House, forged in Sara’s name, led to queries by the United States Secret Service.
Threats and intimidation followed Sara’s announcement that she was going to testify against a Texas racist during a pending Pennsylvania civil action. Although Ms. Salzman has contacted authorities on numerous occasions, (28) help has not been forthcoming, and no criminal investigations have ensued, even in cases involving direct threats of death.
The Southern Poverty Law Center, after an extensive and costly investigation, could only offer the following:
“In response to your question about what I would do if I were suffering the same harassment, I will answer you, but you won’t like it. First, I would cease reading the posts in alt.revisionism; I would completely remove myself from that news group. Second, I would change my telephone number and e-mail address. You shouldn’t have to do these things, of course, but the reality is that they are simple, low-cost solutions to the problem, and a judge and jury would definitely consider those alternatives as well. This point — that a judge and jury would likely be unsympathetic given your decision to participate in alt.revisionism and your ability to avoid most if not all of the harassment by taking yourself out of the fray and changing your e-mail address and phone number — is one of the reasons we decided not to go forward…” (29)
What has Ms. Salzman done to warrant this sort of abuse? She has taken a firm stand in the public forums of UseNet and confronted racist activity at every turn, and she has defended the historiography of the Holocaust with vigor and determination, earning the enmity of every neo-nazi Holocaust denier and the organizations actively spreading hatred. In addition, she has volunteered hundreds — if not thousands — of hours of her time to produce reams of information for the Nizkor Project, including a monumental effort to put the entire transcripts of the first Nurenberg Tribunal online by scanning and coding the British transcripts. (30)
The Nizkor Project (31), a Canadian initiative, has itself been the object of constant harassment, including denial of service threats of various sorts, attacks upon the site’s reputation through anonymous letters sent to firms like Amazon.com, which has an affiliate program which provides Nizkor with a small income stream, and attacks upon the author, who is Nizkor’s founder and Director. I have been described variously as a “well known fag in Canada,” a “convicted car thief and child molestor,” the “mastermind of the Canadian branch of NAMBLA,” and a “criminal and pervert.” These descriptions are often employed by an Edmonton man with a long history of posting antisemitic articles to worldwide newsgroups. (32)
Another attack, probably initiated by an Arkansas extremist, evidenced itself when several hundred forged articles were published on the Internet, which simply asked: “Ken McVay, are you a homosexual?” Similar material, along with unfounded charges of criminal behavior, have been published by a Texas neo-nazi activist who uses the alias “Doc Tavish”.
While these attacks demonstrate the vicious nature of hate activism on the Internet, and a particular animus towards those who fight antisemtitism, they also show that online educational efforts are viewed as effective — and feared — by extremists. This conclusion stems from the fact that similar attacks are leveled against the founders and operators of Hate Watch (33), the Holocaust History Project (34), the Southern Poverty Law Center, and the Anti-Defamation League.
The most blatant example of online intimidation, published through an anonymous remailer in August 2001, carried the Subject line: “A warning to obnoxious posters… ” The body of the message, which appended a list of several Canadians, included the following:
“I am beginning to get sick and tired of the manner in which certain people, entities, and their handlers spoil discussion of the holocaust and of holocaust revisionism in alt.revisionism. Violent and permanent action will be taken against you if you do not stop posting to alt.revisionism.”
The failure of our legal system to provide solutions to the problem presented by anonymous remailers has left a void, which is exploited by extremists. While many (and probably most) such threats are empty, those to whom they are directed have no way of knowing which are serious and which are not. The intimidation, in a legal and emotional sense, is therefore real.
In my experience, police agencies in Canada are well aware of the difficulties facing any investigator who is asked to deal with threats like this one. The impact of this awareness is that investigations are not seriously considered, since the investigators know full well that they have neither the time nor the resources to pursue them. The result, in the author’s experience, is that such threats are simply filed and forgotten, leaving the recipients to fend for themselves, without any hope of government assistance or protection. In the current climate of uncertainty following September 11, it is crucial that the apparent void that now exists in terms of the mass propagation of hate over the Internet receive urgent attention and renewed action from policy makers in government, law enforcement agencies, industry leaders and the courts.