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Headlines February 2010

HOLOCAUST DESCENDANTS LIVID OVER IPHONE'S MUSSOLINI SPEECHES(Italy)

by Tzvi Ben Gedalyahu

(IsraelNN.com) Speeches of former Fascist dictator Benito Mussolini are the new rage in Italy, where Apple's iPhones include an application for downloading audio, video and text of 100 of his speeches. Mussolini introduced anti-Semitic laws in 1938 and was an active ally of Nazi Germany.

The application was launched in January, the same month as Holocaust Remembrance Day and shortly after Pope Benedict XVI made an historic visit to Rome’s central synagogue.

Italians have downloaded the speeches at the rate of 1,000 a day, infuriating local Jews and descendants of Holocaust victims and survivors elsewhere. The “iMussolini” application is subtitled "the man who changed the history of our country” and is more popular than a video game based on the film Avatar.

Mussolini’s granddaughter Alessandra Mussolini, a far-right politician, defended the application, arguing that "whether you like it or not, my grandfather's speeches are part of history."

Elan Steinberg, vice-president of the American Gathering of Holocaust Survivors and their Descendants, stated, "It is a disgrace and a surrender to crass commercialism that the Apple computing company has approved the release of this 'app' through their online iTunes store. This is an insult to the memory of all victims of Nazism and Fascism, Jew and non-Jew, and should be condemned for its offence to decency and conscience."

Former head of the Jewish community in Rome, Tullia Zevi, said the “app” was part of the "the slide towards legitimizing fascism and the rehabilitation of Mussolini.”

iPhone officials said they will not remove the application but will remove offensive fascist slogans that some users have posted in stores selling the phones. Luigi Marino, the creator of the application, argued that all of the iPhone speeches are available at libraries and that he is not an apologist for fascism.

However, historians in recent years have published revisionist views of the avowed fascist Mussolini, whose image has gained popularity in recent years on calendars, T-shirts and souvenirs.

Israelnews

Headlines January 2010

SHEPPARD AND WHITE LOSE APPEAL BUT HAVE SENTENCES REDUCED(UK)

Friday, 29 January 2010 - Internet racism pair lose appeal - Simon Sheppard and Stephen Whittle The men were jailed after a failed bid to seek asylum in the US

Two men have lost their appeals against the UK's first conviction for inciting racial hatred via a foreign website.

Simon Sheppard, 51, was sentenced to four years and 10 months, and Stephen Whittle, 42, to two years and four months at Leeds Crown Court in July.

However, the Court of Appeal has reduced Sheppard's sentence by one year and Whittle's jail term by six months.

Sheppard, from Selby, North Yorks, and Whittle, of Preston, Lancs, controlled US websites featuring racist material.

During their first trial in 2008, they skipped bail and fled to California, where they sought asylum claiming they were being persecuted for their right-wing views, but were deported.

The police investigation began after a complaint about a leaflet called "Tales of the Holohoax", which was pushed through the door of a Blackpool synagogue and traced back to a post office box in Hull registered to Sheppard.

'Abusive and insulting'
Published material found later included images of murdered Jews alongside cartoons and articles ridiculing ethnic groups.

The pair were charged under the Public Order Act with publishing racially inflammatory material, distributing racially inflammatory material and possessing racially inflammatory material with a view to distribution.

Sheppard, of Brook Street, Selby, was found guilty of 16 offences and Whittle, of Avenham Lane, Preston, was found guilty of five.

Sentencing them, Judge Rodney Grant said he had rarely seen material which was so abusive and insulting.

Sheppard's counsel Adrian Davies told the Appeal Court the sites were "entirely lawful" in the US.

He said that there was no evidence that anyone in England and Wales - except for the police officer in the case - had ever seen any of them.

Excessive sentences
Giving the Court of Appeal ruling, Lord Justice Scott Baker said the material had been available to the public despite the fact that the evidence went no further than establishing that one police officer downloaded it.

He said the trial judge had been right to hold that he had jurisdiction to try the pair because much of the activities constituting the crime took place in England.

However, although the Appeal Court judges agreed that "this was truly pernicious material", the sentences handed down had been excessive.

BBC News.

ANTI-INDIAN RACISM IN AUSTRALIA MOVES INTO FACEBOOK (Australia)

Anti-Indian Racism In Australia Moves Into Facebook - 27/1/2010

http://www.medindia.net/news/Anti-Indian-Racism-In-Australia-Moves-Into-Facebook-64219-1.htm

Anti-India sentiment has moved online in Australia. Inspite of all the hue and cry being raised by Indians Down Under, anti-Indian Facebook sites such as groups such as 'I think Indian People Should Wear Deodorant', 'Stop Whinging Indians, and 'Australia: Indians, You Have a Right to Leave' continue to flourish.

"These sites must be shut down but, on the other hand, we must keep track of these hate groups being formed. They can be online or offline. When they're offline we call them gangs. These are essentially online gangs," the Sydney Morning Herald quoted Gautam Gupta, secretary of the Federation of Indian Students, as saying.

Not only the anti-Indian hate groups are active on Facebook, many, including F*** Off - We're Full and Speak English or Piss Off!!!, are growing at a rate of about 2000 people a week.

"I don't think it's just a Facebook problem - it's a social problem, a problem in the society," Gupta said.

Speak English or Piss Off!!! recently posted a note stating: "We are actually winning the battle with Facebook to keep this page up and running."

Darrin Hodges, administrator of the group F*** Off - We're Full, was unapologetic and said Facebook was inconsistent in the way it dealt with groups.

"Our group has been shut down five times and defaced by internet trolls," he said.

Alex Gollan, who set up the Facebook group Australians Against Racism and Discrimination, said it is not in Facebook's interest to close racist pages that hosted advertising.

"Racism on Facebook is an overwhelming problem and it is massively out of control," he said.

Darlene Ford, who teaches Indian students at Adelaide's Cambridge College, said she followed Facebook procedure for reporting a group. She said she was frustrated by Facebook's lack of action.

WHERE GOOGLE STILL CENSORS

21/1/2010- Google's promise to end its self-censorship in China, a daring response to a Chinese cyber attack, may have brought the shine back to the search giant's "Don't Be Evil" ethos. But Google is still blocking certain content in other countries at the demand of their governments. The company won't comment on whether it plans to change those censorship schemes.

India: To abide by obscenity laws, Google strips out certain pornographic results from its Indian search pages. It has also removed content from the Indian version of its social networking site, Orkut, that's deemed by the government to be politically incendiary, like one group representing the Hindu nationalist party Shiv Sena.

France and Germany: Their strict ban on hate speech extends to the Web. Google obliges them by blocking search results for extremist groups like the neo-Nazi group Stormfront and the Holocaust denial association AAARGH.

Thailand: Lése-majesté, or insulting the king, is a serious crime in Thailand. Hence Google's agreement to block Thai users from viewing videos on YouTube (owned by Google) that mocked king Bhumibol Adulyadej, including one that showed him with feet on his head, a symbol of degradation to Thai Buddhists.

Turkey: Google has kowtowed to Turkish government demands that it block a handful of YouTube videos that portrayed Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, the revered founder of the country, as a homosexual. Turkey has banned YouTube anyway for the past two years in an attempt to persuade Google to remove the Atatürk clips from global distribution.

Forbes Magazine

FACEBOOK 'HELP FOR HAITI' GROUP TURNS INTO RACIST SCAM (Czech Rep.)

19/1/2010- Tens of thousands of Czech Facebook users who joined a group that alleged it would donate financial support to Haitian earthquake victims had unwillingly become supporters of racist ideas as the group suddenly changed its description. Aktuálnì.cz learned about the con from its readers. According to its original description, the group named „For every member, 10 CZK (0.40 EUR) will be sent to help Haiti“ was started by Czech entrepreneurs to help the Caribbean nation. Soon, tens of thousands of Czech Facebook users joined the group - in the morning hours of Monday 19 January 2009, there were about 135 thousand registered.

“No reason to support an overpopulated species”
However, already on Saturday 18 January 2009, the alleged noble cause turned into a cynical joke and racist propaganda. “Blacks are not an endangered, but rather overpopulated species. There is no single reason to support them,” the group founded by a user named Adéla Sobotková started to say on Sunday. The author added her own alleged experiences with non-white inhabitants of other countries. “I myself have seen in France and England how terrible it is for whites to live in quarters inhabited by blacks, Arabs or Pakis. The idea that someday they start to breed less and experience demographic decrease caused by low birth rate as in the case of white people, is naïve,” the author said. By 10:30 on Monday 19 January, the group appeared to be deleted.

Wanted an iPhone? Here, have a welfare state instead.
It is at least for the second time in the last weeks when tens of thousands of Czech Facebook users were conned by a group that suddenly changed its description. The other recent case is of a Facebook group that promised some of its members would win iPhones. After roughly 70 thousand joined, the group was re-named, becoming a fan-site of Czech Social Democratic (ÈSSD) leader Jiøí Paroubek. To fully understand the irony in this, it needs to be added that Paroubek is far from being popular among Czech Facebook users, a social group composed mostly of younger people, with numerous anti-Paroubek and anti-ÈSSD groups on Facebook having tens of thousands of members. Famously, a wave of egg-throwing attacks on pre-election campaign meetings of the ÈSSD in spring 2009 was organized via a Facebook group.

Aktualne Cz

PUSH FOR GOOGLE TO DEVELOP RACISM POLICY (Australia)

18/1/2010- The lawyer for an Aboriginal Alice Springs man says his client wants internet giant Google to attend mediation with him and produce a racism policy. Aboriginal broadcaster Steve Hodder-Watt complained to the Human Rights Commission about Google's listing of a racist website in its search results. The website, Encyclopedia Dramatica, used racist descriptions of Aboriginal people and Google has since taken down its listing. But Mr Hodder-Watt's lawyer George Newhouse says the search engine needs to come back with a more comprehensive response. "Google needs to respond to Steve," Mr Newhouse said. "They need to set up a proper system of dealing with these complaints and taking down racism. "And I also think the Government needs to address this issue. "It shouldn't take Steve Hodder-Watt to chase every rat down every drain to remove racist material from the internet." Google says it has a policy of removing sites when it receives a legal request. "We respond to complaints and review them by reference to applicable law and in this case, we removed the URLs identified to us from the search results on google.com.au," a Google spokeswoman said. "In the interest of transparency, the search results now provide notice that pages have been removed in response to a legal request and in their place is a link to chillingeffects.org, which catalogues these removals as well as the legal ground for the removal."

ABC News

CALL TO CLOSE ANTI-WELSH SITES DOWN (UK)

17/1/2010- A Wales on Sunday investigation has discovered that hundreds of people have joined forums on the social networking site declaring how much they despise Welsh people, the Welsh language and Welsh culture in general. Amongst the groups set up on the site are the ‘I Hate The Welsh Society’, which boasts 283 members, and the ‘I Hate The Welsh Language’ group which 130 people have joined. Other separate groups include ‘I Hate The Welsh And Wales’, along with a forum named ‘For All Those Who Hate The Welsh’ and another called ‘I F*****g Hate Welsh People’. Comments such as “Kill the Welsh” and “I f*****g hate Welsh guys” have been posted on message boards of various groups. Another posted by Ben Cryptwind Deathgrasp Ehrman on the I Hate The Welsh Society reads: “They’re all named Taffy and steal stuff when you aren’t looking.” And another poster John Booth says: “Wales sucks. They can’t afford real roads. Welsh people in general are arrogant and all they do is talk about sheep.” The group I Hate The Welsh And Wales was set up By Lia Salsbury in Shrewsbury and declares: “This is a group made purely to poke fun at our friends across the border. It’s not racist so feel free to point your finger at the Welsh freaks.”

The group’s recent news items list: “Sexual relations with sheep, that gibberish language they speak, interbred, their women are all ugly fat, s***s and they have a town that sounds like a name you use for your ass.” The groups were today condemned by equal rights campaigners, who warned that they could encourage hate crimes. Naz Malik, chief executive of the All Wales Ethnic Minority Association, said: “I’m appalled anybody should think that they can start up groups that discriminate against people’s nationality and language. “People should understand that language provides us with means of access to somebody’s culture. Groups such as this are dangerous if they go unchallenged. We have to make a very clear stand that these groups are unacceptable. Whoever set them up should be asked to remove them. “It’s picking on a nationality and language and by doing that we are showing how hateful people are. Things like this are the start of hate crimes and if we don’t challenge it people think it’s ok to do it.” Comments on the I Hate The Welsh Language group include: “Welsh is boring and a waste of frikin time!!!” Aran Jones, chief executive of Cymuned, the Welsh language communities group, also hit out at such comments, saying: “It’s unacceptable and I’m sure if it’s reported to Facebook then the groups will be shut down. “We live in a time where hate of that kind has been shown to be dangerous. It should be stamped out. If it was against Islam or Christianity, it would be unacceptable and it’s no different when it’s against Welsh people or any other group of people.”

No-one from Facebook responded to Wales on Sunday’s request for comment.

Wales Online

CLAIMS OF HATE CRIME OVER SOCIAL NETWORKS (UK)

15/1/2010- Police have vowed to clamp down on hate crimes across Teesside after claims two people were targeted through social networking sites. The Safer Middlesbrough Partnership and partner agencies operate a monthly Hate Crime Case Group to tackle harassment. A hate crime is any criminal offence motivated by hostility or prejudice based on the victom's disability, race, religion or belief, sexual orientatio or transgender. Recently the group dealt with two reported cases of internet- based hate crime after the victims were targeted through social networking sites because of their race or religious backgrounds. Sergeant Ian Sharp, from Cleveland Police's community safety unit, said: "We will not tolerate any form of hate crime in Middlesbrough, and will use all the resources at our disposal to ensure that perpetrators are brought to justice. "They will be firmly dealt with by the police and other criminal justice agencies." The group includes the Safer Middlesbrough Partnership, Cleveland Police, Crown Prosecution Service, North of England Refugee Service, Erimus Housing, Middlesbrough Voluntary Development Agency, Anti-Social Behaviour Team, the BME (Black and Minority Ethnic) Network, Victim Support, Tees Valley Housing, Unite and Middlesbrough Council. Matt Fowler, Safer Middlesbrough Partnership co-ordination and development support officer, said: "While the internet and online world can be a means of bringing people together and providing new forums for social contact, individuals can also be at risk from unwanted contact, inappropriate behaviour and potentially harmful content. "We also have evidence of the internet being exploited by those who want to spread messages of hate. "We would urge all users of the social networking sites, such as Facebook, to exercise caution and control when adding individuals to their contacts who request friendship, if they are previously not known to them."

Anyone who experiences hate crime from any source is urgedto report it to Cleveland Police on 01642-326326. A comprehensive list of all reporting venues can be found online and incidents reported at reporthatecrime.co.uk

http://www.thenorthernecho.co.uk/news/4852677.Claims_of_hate_crime_over_social_networks/

WHITE SUPREMACIST GROUPS TARGET CHILDREN ONLINE

By Francisca Ortega.

12/1/2010- With Martin Luther King Day coming up many teachers will be assigning projects on African-American historical figures. Parents, now is good time to teach your kids a valuable lesson about the Internet: Don't believe everything that you read.

According to Heidi Beirich, spokesperson for the Southern Poverty Law Center, white supremacists groups often publish Web sites with what appears to be legitimate information but is really just lies and propaganda.

Type Martin Luther King into Google, for example, and one of the first three sites listed will be www.martinlutherking.org, a site that advertises itself as: "the truth about Martin Luther King" and "a valuable resource for teachers and students alike."

The site is produced by Stormfront, a white-supremacist, neo-Nazi group. And the "facts" presented are not at all factual, Beirich said.

"(The site posts) things that look like real source material, but they're not so there's no way to tell if you're not pretty educated or sophisticated," she said. "Sometimes kids can't tell what is legitimate and what is not."

Michael Dorsey of the Houston Independent School District said sites such as these are why the school district has aggressive filtering software on school computers. It's also why Houston-area teachers are encouraged to guide students to pre-approved resource sites, he said.

"Basically the thing we want to keep kids away from doing is just Googling a term, because that can get them anywhere," he said. "It really becomes a Wild Wild West kind of thing."

At home, it is recommended that students access the district's online resources such as EBSCO host. EBSCO is just one research database the district subscribes to and offers free of charge to students. The username and passcode are easy to remember and can be obtained from your child's teacher or librarian, he said.

Getting children to believe false information isn't the only risk hate groups pose to children, however. Many of these groups also target children with online games and chat rooms, Beirich said.

The Anti-Defamation League offers the following advice for kids and parents when they find hate speech online:

Flag. Many sites, such as YouTube, allow users to flag offensive content for review. Many also allow you to say why you thought something was offensive. If you flag content, make sure to include detailed comments as to why you think the item was hateful.

http://www.mysanantonio.com/moms/81206242.html

This article first appeared on MomHouston.com.



HOLOCAUST DENIAL IS A FORM OF HATE SPEECH(2009)

By Raphael Cohen-Almagor, Amsterdam Law Forum (2009).

Introduction

Recently Facebook confirmed that it has disabled a group called ‘I Hate Muslims in Oz.’ Barry Schnitt explained: “We disabled the ‘I Hate Muslims in Oz’ group because it contained an explicit statement of hate. Where Holocaust-denial groups have done this and been reported, we’ve taken the same action”. Facebook distinguishes between ‘explicit statement of hate’ and Holocaust denial. Its directors believe that Holocaust denial is not hateful per se and does not therefore contravene the company’s terms of service. The terms of service say: “You will not post content that is hateful, threatening, pornographic, or that contains nudity or graphic or gratuitous violence”. Schnitt said: “We’re always discussing and evaluating our policies on reported content, but have no plans to change this policy at this time. In addition to discussing it internally, we continue to engage with third-party experts on the issue”.

In this short piece I wish to take issue with the assertion that Holocaust denial is not hateful per se. My aim is to show that it is, and therefore that Facebook should reconsider its position. All Internet providers and web-hosting companies whose terms of service disallow hateful messages on their servers should not host or provide forums for such hate-mongering. This is of urgent need as Holocaust denial is prevalent in Europe, the United States (USA) and across the Arab and Muslim parts of the world. Iran’s regime, under the disputed leadership of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, has made questioning the Holocaust one of the centerpieces of its radical ideology, brazenly proclaiming falsehoods about one of the most thoroughly documented periods in history. In December 2006, he convened an ‘International Conference Review of the Holocaust: Global Vision’ designed to address the ‘need’ to establish whether the Holocaust actually happened. Ahmadinejad’s Holocaust denial is accompanied by outrageous statements, such as Israel should be “wiped out from the map”, and by controversial nuclear policy. Hateful words are part of a calculated strategy to denounce Israel and bring about a “World without Zionism”.

Read the full article here.

IS GOOGLE CENSORING ISLAM SUGGESTIONS?

By Ryan Singel - January 7, 2010

Confused about what Islam is? Join the party — it seems Google can’t figure it out either. Or, at least its search suggestion program can’t. If you type, “Buddhism is” or “Christianity is,” Google will quickly show you suggestions for what it thinks you might be trying to type. In the former query’s case, the Google guesses “not a religion,” “wrong,” “not what you think.” Christianity gets tougher treatment with the suggestions “bullshit” and “not a religion.” But the query “Islam is”? Not a thing comes to mind for Google to suggest. (Search results are still there, of course.)It’s enough to get some to conclude Google is censoring itself, perhaps as a result of complaints for suggestions that one guesses are just as flattering as those for other faiths. But Google says it’s just a software problem. “This is a bug and we’re working to fix it as quickly as we can,” a Google spokesman told Wired.com. The suggestion feature relies on your previous searches and searches from users globally. Google says it filters out “pornographic terms, dirty words, and hate and violence terms.” That means it’s most likely someone at Google got a complaint, added the phrase to a list of skip words, like f**K, seeing the results as hate and violence — perhaps without even looking at suggestions for other religions. So, “What is the ‘Islam is’” thing? We suggest “a bug,” an “affront,” “censorship,” “an attempt at international relations by a large, profit-driven advertising company,” or a “feature,” depending on your politics, religion or employer.

http://www.wired.com/epicenter/2010/01/google-islam-censorship/

CANADIAN GOVERNMENT SHUTS 4,500 WEBSITES

Emma Woollacott - Wed 30th Dec 2009, 05:16 pm

Blame Canada

The Canadian government has suffered something of a sense of humor failure. It has shut down two parody websites criticizing Canada's poor environmental policy - and taken down 4,500 other websites in the process. The two websites - enviro-canada.ca and ec-gc.ca - carried out an elaborate spoof two weeks ago, aiming to highlight the lack of progress in Copenhagen - and to call out Canada in particular for its 'terrible' climate policy. The government responded by demanding that the sites' German ISP, Serverloft, remove them. It even went way further, asking Serverloft to try and stop "other environment-related domains" originating from its servers And, astoundingly, Serverloft responded by turning off an entire block of IP addresses, thereby knocking out more than 4,500 sites that had nothing whatsoever to do with the hoax. "We are sorry to see that the Canadian government will not take certain actions that could help stave off catastrophic climate change," said Mike Bonanno of The Yes Men, one of the groups that performed the hoax.

http://www.tgdaily.com/trendwatch-brief/45237-canadian-government-shuts-4500-websites

DOMAIN NAME EXTENSION 'COULD BOOST CYBER-CRIME'

30/12/2009- The introduction of internet addresses in non-Roman scripts could offer fresh opportunities to cyber-criminals, experts have warned. Next year the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (Icann) will for the first time accept internet domain names in non-Roman scripts. The domain name is the part of a web address that precedes the “dot”, such as timesonline. The new internationalised domain names will open up the internet as never before to users whose native language does not use the Roman alphabet. But Roman-reading users face a possible deluge of phishing and e-mail scams. “With Cyrillic, Korean, Arabic, Chinese, Korean and Japanese scripts now possible, this threatens to be like a hydra,” Simon Bennett, an intellectual property lawyer with the law firm Arnold & Porter, told The Times. “You cut off one head and another grows in its place.”

The problem for Western users is that the internet addresses of many well-known companies, such as Apple, Yahoo, Google and PayPal, can also be rendered to look identical in Cyrillic scripts, such as Russian. To a Roman-reading eye, an e-mail containing a link to any one of these sites might appear genuine, while to a Russian-reading eye, “paypal”, for example, reads as “raural”. An e-mail link could thus lead to a clone site constructed by unscrupulous thieves, who could then use it to harvest personal and financial details, or to steal cash. This is known as “phishing”, and Russia is such a known global centre for organised online crime that it has been the subject of special talks between the governments of Russian and the United States.

“They [Icann] seem to have started the process of allowing people to register domain names in non-Roman characters but don’t seem to have put in place anything that obligates any registry to safeguard trademark rights or the rights of legitimate businesses that use the same name,” Mr Bennett said. “There’s going to be a lot more scope for people to take advantage. Icann just doesn’t think these things through properly.” Asked whether companies and consumers would now have to be doubly cautious over misuse of trademark names, Mr Bennett said: “Absolutely. And at a time when companies can least afford to police these things, this is going to open the door to another level.”

Charlie Abrahams of MarkMonitor, which monitors online trademark abuses for brands such as Gucci, agreed. “The risk for general brand abuse is going to increase exponentially,” he said. “It’s difficult enough in English. “At present, most e-mail phishing does not use anything that resembles the real site name. We could see the level of sophistication in phishing attacks increased by the use of foreign languages.” Among other scripts about to be allowed by Icann, Japanese and Chinese in particular pose problems. As both languages use a writing system that is based on images rather than sounds, companies such as Apple and Paypal face the problem of choosing whether to register a local site that sounds like the company name, or corresponds to its meaning. In other words, should Apple choose the Chinese character for “Apple”, or a combination of characters than sound like the word “Apple”?

“We haven’t yet seen how the big brand owners are going to take on the new domain names,” said Mr Abrahams, “though they typically just register their main brand name.”

http://technology.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/tech_and_web/article6971724.ece

Headlines December 2009

STUDENT RACE HATE POSTS ANGER JEWISH GROUP

29/12/2009- A Jewish group has criticised posters on a student website who say provocative anti-Semitic material was published on the site as a joke. The NSW Jewish Board of Deputies (JBD) raised a complaint after images of a burning Israeli flag and photos of a Nazi swastika accompanied by comments such as "let's holocaust them" appeared in a thread on the Bored of Studies website. One of the posts included details about finding synagogues in Sydney and instructions for making a molotov cocktail. In another post, one user wrote "kill all da f**king Jews. Hate every single one of them ... hope Iran nukes them." The site, Australia's largest student website with over 290,000 members and an average of 7 million monthly hits, is recommended to students by many councils and schools as a useful study resource. Managers of the site removed the material and banned those responsible for the posts. Many users of the site applauded the bans, but others defended the comments, saying they were made in jest. "Most of the posts ... were satirical and humorous in their exaggeration," said user Mirakon in a thread responding to the controversy. "Those with narrow-minded senses of humour were actually foolish enough to take all of these comments seriously." Another user wrote that "slagging people off" is part of the Australian cultural identity. "Not taking things or ourselves too seriously is core to this community," user Philphie said.

"All the fun people are banned."
But the JBD's chief executive, Vic Alhadeff, says the comments constitute racial hatred. "There is absolutely nothing humorous about encouraging people to kill people, and that is what many of the comments on that website said," Mr Alhadeff told ABC News Online. "There is certainly a place for humour in public debate. However, when those comments go into the area of encouraging people to carry out acts of racial hatred, that is wrong. "There is an onus on all of us, as members of a country which celebrates difference and diversity, to show respect for others and in doing so we can expect respect in return." Mr Alhadeff says tighter controls on the site's forums are needed to ensure the incident is not repeated. "Taking action to moderate after the comments are posted is too little, too late, because the damage has been done," he said. The incident comes as a report shows the number of anti-Jewish incidents in Australia has spiked. The Anti-Semitism Report was compiled by the Australia/Israel and Jewish Affairs Council. The report reveals 962 accounts of anti-Jewish incidents in the past year, twice the annual average. Physical violence accounted for 27 of the incidents in the report, with vandalism, harassment and intimidation accounting for the other incidents. Mr Alhadeff says all racism needs to be condemned. "We have concerns about racism, whether it is directed against Christians, Muslims or Jews," he said.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2009/12/29/2782122.htm

US NEO-NAZI LURE YOUTH WITH FREE MUSIC DOWNLOADS

by Tzvi Ben Gedalyahu

28/12/2009 - American neo-Nazis are using deceptive free music downloads to lure youth and college students into anti-Semitism, according to the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) of the B’Nai Brith organization. It said the new tactics specifically target high school and college students through advertisements in school newspapers.

“While the hate mongers have used stealth tactics before, now they are taking it to the next level by attempting to trick unsuspecting students into logging onto sites that appear harmless, but in reality are promoting music with a white supremacist message,” said Abraham H. Foxman, ADL National Director.

A scheme for free music downloads was advertised in newspapers by Montana resident Kevin McGuire, who operates the Victory Forever racist website. McGuire tricked the school papers by changing his site when he placed ads offering music by independent artists, but after the ads were published, he returned the site to its usual white supremacist format.

The Victory Forever site claims to disseminate “white resistance” music as widely as possible and to “recruit vast minions of white youth to become soldiers in the war for white racial survival.” Its current site features a video of a diatribe against alleged Jewish control of mass media.

McGuire also maintains a related website called “Fetch the Rope” that makes available racist CDs, swastika stickers and T-shirts for purchase at prices “cheap enough to hand out to the neighborhood kids.”

Last month, another neo-Nazi placed an advertisement in the student newspaper of Northern Kentucky University promoting Resistance Records, the group’s racist music label, and the music of white power bands.

Link: http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/135226

SHOULD THE U.S. DESTROY JIHADIST WEBSITES?

23/12/2009- The Internet has played a key role in radicalizing a number of key players in alleged terror plots this year. From Fort Hood accused shooter Nidal Hasan to the five young Americans detained in Pakistan this month allegedly en route to fight U.S. forces in Afghanistan, authorities claim the suspects needed no face-to-face contact with jihadist recruiters. Instead, the Internet is serving as an electronic funnel for extremists to infuse U.S.-based Muslims with a justification for jihad.

But wait a minute. The U.S. military invented the Internet 40 years ago. Why can't it simply hunt down and destroy the web sites that inspire murderous fanatics? While the Saudi government estimates there are 17,000 such websites, most experts say that only around a half-dozen of these generate original material. "Most jihad cyber domains initiate very little, if any, original discussion, primarily reposting material from popular jihad forums," said a report earlier this month from MEMRI, the Middle East Media Research Institute, an organization that monitors and translates much jihadist material. "Hence, disabling the few prominent domains could seriously cripple Islamists' ability to conduct mass online discussions, and could also hamper the rapid spread of jihad material in cyberspace." (See pictures of a Jihadist's Journey.)

The topic is now the subject of increasing debate. On one side are military theorists such as John Arquilla of the Naval Post Graduate School in Monterey, California, who believe that driving militant Islamists off the web would destroy their ability to carry out jihad. But scholars such as Chris Boucek, of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, maintain that defeating online jihad won't happen by shutting down websites ­ they say the best antidote to jihadist websites is countering their arguments for killing with better-reasoned Islamic logic.

Last week the House Armed Services Committee held a hearing into the topic just as Arquilla was arguing in a post on Foreign Affairs magazine's website that the time had come to view al-Qaeda's cyberspace as a battlefield. "Instead of thinking of cyberspace principally as a place to gather intelligence, we need to elevate it to the status of 'battlespace,'" he argued. "This means that we either want to exploit terrorists' use of the Web and Net unbeknownst to them, or we want to drive them from it." Arquilla tells TIME that al-Qaeda doesn't "put people on planes anymore because they know we're good at spotting them, and if we take away cyberspace we would achieve a crippling effect on the global terror network." (Read "The Chicago Suspect: Are Pakistani Jihadis Going Global?")

But Arquilla's logic doesn't add up, counters Evan Kohlmann of the non-profit NEFA Foundation, created following 9/11 to track Islamic terrorism. Shutting down jihadist web sites "would be like firing cruise missiles at our own spy satellites," he argues, referring to the intelligence the U.S. and its allies glean from such sites. Besides, it can't be done. "If you shut down one of their websites today, they have a complete copy elsewhere and can put it up on a new server and have it up tomorrow," Kohlmann says. Such websites are the only window the rest of the world has into al-Qaeda and other such groups. "If you start shutting down the websites," he adds, "it's like chopping up a jellyfish ­ you end up with lots of little pieces that are very difficult to monitor." Kohlmann believes that the websites are a treasure trove of valuable intelligence, most of which is being overlooked by the U.S.

And there seems to be growing support for the view that instead of trying to blow up al-Qaeda's websites, it may make more sense to battle their ideology online with better arguments. "We're talking about a movement that's based on ideas and grievances, so we need to understand those ideas and grievances," Boucek says. "Failing to engage in debate on those issues means we're ceding all of that to them, and that makes no sense to me."

At the recent House subcommittee hearing, Boucek lauded a Saudi program where government-funded religious scholars go online to assorted jihadi websites and debate what is and isn't permitted by Islam. "They try to show people that there's a different way than what they might be thinking," he told the panel. "This is basically saying, 'If you go online to look for answers about religion and you listen to these guys, you'll go off on the wrong track'." The Saudis, in their so-called Sakina campaign, then take these written chats and post them elsewhere. "There's a multiplying effect when they put this on their website for other people to read," Boucek said. "Also on their website are different documents and studies, recantation videos, things like that that explain extremism and radicalization."

Boucek and other experts believe Washington should launch a a similar program with experts going onto jihadi websites and arguing with young Muslims over what the Koran allows. The approach shouldn't be heavy-handed and would probably be better handled by academics than by government officials. "You can't have the American military telling people what their religion allows," Boucek says. But someone, he adds, should be arguing the other side on these websites. "It's shocking to me that eight years into this conflict, we don't have a formal institution doing this."

http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1949373,00.html?xid=rss-topstories

ITALY DROPS HATE SITE BAN PLAN AFTER PM ATTACKED

22/12/2009- Italy dropped plans on Tuesday to black out Internet hate sites despite a pledge for radical measures after fan pages emerged on the Internet last week praising an attack on Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi. Interior Minister Roberto Maroni, who had proposed blocking such sites following the assault on the prime minister, said after meeting with executives from Facebook, Google, Microsoft and other Internet service providers he would seek a solution through a shared code of conduct rather than new legislation. "The road to follow is to find an agreement with all those involved and avoid forcing through new measures," Maroni told reporters. "If this agreement is found, it would be the first of this kind in the world," he said, adding that more talks will be held in January. Berlusconi's allies were incensed by fan pages for Massimo Tartaglia, who struck Berlusconi in the face on December 13 after a rally in Milan, that appeared on the web -- mainly on Facebook and YouTube -- within hours of the attack. In a statement last week Facebook said it would take quick action to remove any content reported to it that makes direct threats against an individual. It also shut down the largest fan page for Tartaglia after 100,000 users joined it in less than 48 hours, but at least two pro-Tartaglia groups were still visible on Tuesday. A video has also surfaced on YouTube casting doubt on the authenticity of the attack and saying it was staged. Maroni, who is from the far-right Northern League party, had initially pledged to pass an emergency decree to black out hate sites. But critics said that smacked of censorship, with one member of the opposition Italy of Values party comparing the planned measures to attempts to control Internet use in China and Iran. Facebook said in its statement that while promoting violence or posting threatening content on its pages was not permitted, "online debates simply reflect what happens offline, where conversations between people take place freely at home or by phone and e-mail." The site has more than 12 million active users in Italy, or 20 percent the population.

http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/2009/12/22/world/international-uk-italy-berlusconi-internet.html?_r=1

INACH - International Network Against CyberHate

The object of INACH, the International Network Against Cyberhate is to combat discrimination on the Internet. INACH is a foundation under Dutch Law and is seated in Amsterdam. INACH was founded on October 4, 2002 by Jugendschutz.net and Magenta Foundation, Complaints Bureau for Discrimination on the Internet.