Network Properties of the Internet Creates a Forum for Hate Content
Based off a new research study led by Jason Chan, PhD, which showed a positive relationship between broadband Internet access and the incidence of race-driven hate crimes, particularly those committed by individuals, this article further explores this connection. Social networks existed before Facebook, Twitter, and countless other social networking sites existed; social networks are the bonds and connections between people and interfacing society with the world-wide web has allowed social networks to take on a radically new persona. With the introduction of the web, social networks can expand practically infinitely. Social networks centralized around practically any interest can be found on the internet and can be composed of people from around the world. Although this seems great for uses like Stack Exchange, Wikipedia, and Yahoo Answers, these social networks can also take a radical and detrimental demeanor. As described in the article, we view the internet as this tool which broadens our horizons, but the search engine has the exact opposite effect; when a user searches for an existing interest, the internet actually narrows their views. When searching for specific topics like hate content, these algorithms return a wealth of extremely specific and radical pages. Unlike normal human to human interactions, the internet provides these extremists with a safety net where a counterview can be easily ignored, mocked by the community, or removed from the content all together. Consumers of hate content have more resources than ever before and never have to face the judgement of face-to-face interactions and because there is monetary reward in having a popular page, the producers of this hate content have more support than ever before.
This trend is particularly interesting as it is an interface between two applications of networks we have studied in this class; social networks and the representation of the world-wide web as a network. Search engine algorithms utilize the network properties of the world-wide web when producing results and in effect this allows for segmented narrow-minded social networks to form in a way that would never be seen to such an extent in a cyber-free society. The current design of the internet propagates the idea that “There is no such thing as bad publicity.” It no longer matters if content is getting positive or negative attention; money is connected to the grand sum of attention a page gets so producers of hate content have more reason than ever before to be increasingly radical. In the age of newspapers, writers had to cater to an audience; their jobs depended on their readership. Their jobs often depended on the number of people who agreed with their views enough to buy a paper. Now, in the age of free online content, writers have no reason to represent accurate facts or pander to popular opinion or maintain some iota of decency. Their salaries heavily depend on the number of clicks their sites and articles get; it no longer matters that people like what they say, if they can get twice the views by being twice as offensive why wouldn’t they?