Violence on the Internet is a booming business. However, it may seem like a safe enough medium - after all, the images aren't, as yet, half as sophisticated as those we see on television or in the cinema. In fact, from hate sites to Internet child pornography, violence on the World Wide Web can be very harmful to a lot of people.
Gary Glitter, of glam-rock fame, has just been sentenced to four months' imprisonment in Britain after he admitted downloading indecent images of children. It is estimated that 27,000 people access child-pornography sites every day. It's hard to know how many sites there are, but the number of pictures runs into millions. A recent study suggested that half of all non-academic searches on the Internet are for pornography. Some images are created by electronic montage. But some images are real, and in the case of Garry Glitter pictures of children as young as two years old being abused were discovered.
It isn't just about images. Hate sites - sites which advocate violence against or unreasonable hostility towards people identified by their race, religion, national origin, sexual orientation, gender or disability - are also the source of a lot of controversy. A typical example is the anti-homosexual site, which warns that homosexuality is a sin, sodomites are wicked and that there is a hell for them. All this, as a pretty balloon drifts across the page declaring: "God hates fags."
Well, offensive as it is, it's an opinion, which in turn raises the question of freedom of speech. An organisation called Peacefire was created in 1996 to represent the interests of people under 18 in the debate over freedom of speech on the Internet. According to Peacefire, a range of software which schools and parents use to block or censor sites has in fact censored what might be regarded as perfectly acceptable sites: the International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission, for example. Value systems clearly come into play with regard to decisions on what should and shouldn't be censored. There are also difficulties with how programmes work. NetNanny, for example, uses a keyword system that could see perfectly "innocent" queries rejected.
There are also cyber-vigilantes keeping an eye on the web. HateWatch, an organisation founded in 1996, monitors and confronts bigots on the web. Its members also offer assistance to victims of hate crimes, but it doesn't advocate censorship of hate sites. It is very difficult to police online violence. There is no international legislation covering issues like online child pornography. However, in Ireland under the Child Trafficking and Pornography Act 1998, possession of child pornography is a crime and people have been arrested here for being involved in online child pornography.
According to HateWatch, one way to contain violence is by having users only do business with good members of the Internet business community, organisations with a "no hate page" policy.
Other people feel the only way to deal with online violence is to use computer expertise to hack into offending sites and sabotage them. However, this is illegal. HateWatch condemns "hacktivism" as a violation of online civil rights. "Education and participation, not acts of vandalism, will make the web a more tolerant community," HateWatch says.
