Issue date: March 28, 1999

Hate on the Web:
Is it free speech?
Or does it incite violence?

What can you do in response?

A special report by Dennis McCafferty

Think of the World Wide Web as a visit to the greatest convention of the 1990s. Over in the corner, a crowd of attendees clip on badges bearing names like Amazon and eBay and brag that they're turning shopping malls into dinosaurs. On the floor, vendors stand at booths hawking wares that represent a decade's worth of buzzwords: cyberschools, intranets, e-trade, e-tail.

Now, imagine a different breed of Internet denizen has quietly filtered onto the floor. They've set up convention booths complete with irresistible techno-toys: showy animation, sound files and online chats. At the SS Enterprises booth, a Nazi-styled vendor offers to dress you up with a gold SS buckle and SS officer's helmet for $200. Next door, members of an anti-gay group depict the bouncing head of Matthew Shepard in a sea of flames. The victim of a killing that stunned the nation and sparked outraged calls for hate-crime legislation, Shepard was the 22-year-old University of Wyoming student beaten to death last October with a .357 Magnum, allegedly because he was gay. Visitors are updated on how many days Shepard has "been in hell."

This is the Web site of Westboro Baptist Church in Topeka, Kan. "We got 20,000 e-mails in two days after picketing his funeral, from all over the world," says the Rev. Fred Phelps, the church's 69-year-old pastor. The site's webmaster is his grandson Ben, 23, a teaching assistant at the University of Kansas who is pursuing a master's degree in computer science. ("I keep what I do out of the classroom," Phelps says. "But if my students ask me, I'll answer them.")

Like many, the Phelpses have discovered that the Net has become the quintessential '90s tool for finding answers, whether they're right or wrong. It opens up profound volumes of information and communication to virtually anyone. Because this great liberator closes its doors to no one, what are commonly called "hate groups" have set up shop there. That's no surprise.

What's stunning is just how flashy these sites are - and whom they target. These groups have access to a worldwide audience after decades of handing out leaflets on street corners. Now, their online sites use arcade-style games, music, bulletin boards and other tech-savvy gimmicks to attract a larger, more sophisticated crowd. Even children. In the old days, critics could simply tear down their posters. Today, when Internet companies pull the plug, these groups can get back online. Their intended targets extend far beyond blacks and gays: Jews, Hispanics, pacifists, abortion doctors, the federal government - a wide range of entities are subject to a "hate" site.

Matthew Shepard's death - followed by a possibly similar killing in Alabama this month and a recent conviction in the racially motivated dragging death in Jasper, Texas - has raised concerns about the incendiary potential of such sites. A few clicks of a mouse show why:

Click - and you're on the Aryan 3 site. You're playing Sieg Heil! as an Aryan hero with a magic sword and a mission to thwart scientists creating a "cross-bred" race. Click - and another Aryan site appears featuring racist cartoons, including one contending that black ministers are behind their own church burnings. That site endorses violence against "whiggers,'' white people who have embraced black culture. "It's the kind of thing kids will pass along," says Randall Bytwerk, a Calvin College communications professor in Grand Rapids, Mich., who tracks Web content. "A Nazi newspaper could be passed around in school, but it would get confiscated. With this, you just e-mail the Web address and say, 'Did you see this?' "

Take the World Church of the Creator's Kids page, the Web equivalent of the gingerbread house in the story of Hansel and Gretel: sweetly inviting outside, ominous within. The site has posted an online crossword puzzle, coloring pages and other treats, all serving as a primer on the white-preservationist movement.

Children are faire game for aggressive courtship, says Creator church leader Matt Hale, 27. "Why should we not? Sesame Street goes after young kids with their agenda about race and tolerance. I see no reason why we shouldn't bring a message like this." When it comes to reaching young adults, Hale says his site lets him target a more educated crowd than ever: students from Harvard, the University of California and other major universities.

Hate groups, as defined by those who monitor them, denigrate categories of people on the basis of characteristics such as race, religion, sexual orientation or ethnicity with divisive, sometimes violence-provoking language. The groups themselves, naturally, dispute that description. "Our organization is a LOVE group," Hale argues in an e-mail; members simply "care about our White Race ... and wish to preserve it."

The Westboro Baptist anti-gay site states that it "does not support the murder of Matthew Shepard," and the Rev. Phelps adds, "We define ourselves as a church of the Lord Jesus Christ, and God hates fags." (His church is not aligned with the 15 million-member Southern Baptist Convention.)

That the message is unfiltered online is the price of free speech. "Our First Amendment theory is to let the public decide what to read, and to trust the public to reject outrageous materials put before them," says Floyd Abrams, a prominent First Amendment lawyer.

The number of such sites has boomed with the internet itself. The first one showed up four years ago; the number now is about 250, says the Southern Poverty Law Center, one of the foremost monitors of this activity.

Now, the educated, college-bound teen living in a $300,000 home can be easily reached with a message that starts out as a relatively mainstream attack on affirmative action, then devolves into intolerance. Other sites target a young, working-class audience with anti-government grousing that snowballs into sinister conspiracy speculation-as-fact. In addition, these groups use rock music to reach a younger, more sophisticated audience. Confrontational, race-baiting skinhead bands sell more than 50,000 CDs a year. Mark Tappendorf, 22, a machinist who lives in greater Milwaukee, says he visits a skinhead site just for the music and doesn't endorse its political views - but he acknowledges the site recruits a racist following: "Friends of mine, they get on this site and the next day they're Nazis."

The 1995 Oklahoma City bombing was the result of such alienated, angry thinking. "We should be quite alarmed," says Morris Dees, director of the Southern Poverty Law Center. "The Internet has done for hate groups what the printing press has done for literature. Before, these groups would post a message on a bulletin board and few people would see it. Now, they post a message on the Net and millions see it. We should be outraged and alarmed, because these ideas can lead to violent events."

Says U.S. Rep. John Lewis, a veteran civil-rights leader: "We have the capacity and ability to do so much good, and we have this growing movement using the Web to advocate hate. Part of it is the fear of the unknown that these groups build a movement around: 'Someone's coming over the border to take my job.' "

The Web is just the beginning. The putative father of this online genre, white supremacist Don Black, 45, of West Palm Beach, Fla., says his "Stormfront" site has attracted nearly a million visitors since it went up in spring 1995. Before that, via direct mail, Black never reached more than 14,000 people a year. Now, with visions of his own TV network, Black says: "We're not trailer-trash people with bad teeth or high school dropouts. [We] live in the suburbs. We have a Duke student, another from the University of Miami and Florida State. We are not illiterate, unsophisticated people."

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WHAT CAN YOU DO IN RESPONSE

FIGHTING BACK
The First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution protects free speech. But the Supreme Court has upheld restrictions against speech that threatens to cause "imminent lawlessness" or endanger national security. Resources available for those concerned about hate on the World Wide Web and its consequences:

SOFTWARE SCREENS
The Anti-Defamation League recently introduced "HateFilter" software to block access to sites that advocate hatred or violence toward Jews or other groups. The filter can be previewed at no charge and purchased for $29.95. For more information, go to www.adl.org.

WATCHDOGS
Randy Blazak directs the Hate Crimes Research Network at Oregon's Portland State University, one of a growing number of monitoring groups.
He worries most that the sites "appeal to young people who are looking for answers."

LEGAL ACTION
Last month, a jury awarded $107 million to abortion doctors who said they were endangered by online "wanted" posters and likened to Nazi criminals on the "Nuremberg Files" Web site.

IN THE HOME OR THE CLASSROOM
Parents and teachers should expect that children may discover these sites. The key is to present an honest assessment of the message these groups promote and how this may conflict with values regarding respect for other people, says the Southern Poverty Law Center. At its Web site (www.splcenter.org), the "Teaching Tolerance" link offers additional resources for classrooms.

COVER photograph by Eli Reichman for USA WEEKEND