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June 2, 2000/28 Iyar 5760, Vol. 52, No.39
ADL keeps track of online hate
LEISAH NAMM
Staff Writer
Deceptive Web sites produced by hate groups are the primary danger facing children on the Internet, says Jordan Kessler, senior research analyst for the Anti-Defamation League, who spoke about online hatred May 21-22 in Phoenix.
"If a kid searches for Holocaust information, he might come up with Holocaust denial. There are other sites that are particularly meant to mislead kids and others. ... Also, kids are in danger because (some of these) sites are meant to appeal to them specifically."
For instance, "There are racist rock music Web sites that ... look very similar to Web sites for mainstream, non-extremist record labels and music magazines."
Various hate groups post messages in public areas of mainstream Web sites; send e-mail messages to random lists; list their sites under generic search terms; and invade chat rooms to try to engage people.
Kessler recalled the story of Bradley Gonik, an 11-year-old Detroit resident who encountered online hatred in a computer chat room.
According to a 1999 article in the Detroit Jewish News, a chat room participant asked Gonik if his grandparents were among the 6 million (Jews killed in the Holocaust). When Gonik wrote, "No, they survived," the inquirer replied: "Oh - that's too bad."
Gonik asked the person what he meant. The response: "Any Jew that survived was a mistake - and now you're here."
Frightened, Gonik shut off his computer. An hour later, he turned it back on and found a message reading: "Adolph Jr. From your worst night mare.com. The subject, "Jewish extermination part two." The message, "Die. I will find you," along with a string of vulgarities.
Gonik deleted the message, but received repeated copies - 1,500 total - as fast as he could delete them.
The boy told his parents, who filed a police report and notified the ADL, which investigated and determined that the message originated in the Netherlands.
Gonik's mother, Andrea Gonik, told the Detroit Jewish News that she believes the threats stopped "because of the ADL's aggressive involvement."
"It's difficult to find out who had sent the messages because they came via computer, overseas," Kessler says. "This is an example of how this hatred can reach people in their homes - a young child sitting in his room, all of this material coming right down onto his screen."
As a senior research analyst, Kessler, 25, spends his days "watching Web sites, news groups, online bulletin boards, chat rooms - places on the Internet where haters may lurk. He uses various technologies to keep an eye on what's happening in cyberspace.
"We collect as much publicly available information as we can and try to effectively analyze it, particularly looking for threats against people, or information about concrete activities that these groups are planning, ties between groups, important ideological statements."
Kessler says his job is to monitor hate on the Internet, not to silence it.
"We believe very strongly in freedom of speech. We believe that the answer to hate speech is more speech," he says.
Some Internet providers choose not to do business with hate groups, says Kessler, a former Internet researcher for a consulting firm. "They have the right to do that, the same way a business can say 'no shirt, no shoes, no service.' If an Internet service has rules like that, we will inform them if we find a hate site there."
However, if hate sites are not against the provider's policies, ADL won't pressure them to remove it, he says.
Parents can help prevent their children from inadvertently viewing hate group Web sites by using HateFilter, the ADL filtering software product that blocks access sites of individuals or groups that, in the ADL's judgment, promote hatred.
Kessler also suggests that parents and children visit such sites together, and then talk about what they're seeing.
The ADL provides instructions for doing this at their Web site, www.adl.org.
Kessler says that during his 2 1/2 years monitoring the Internet at ADL national headquarters in New York City, he has noticed an increase in the sites' sophistication.
Kessler predicts no future Internet regulation in the United States, though notes the possibility in Europe.
"In Germany, for instance, it's illegal to spread Nazi views," he says. "However, if you're in Germany, you could conceivably create a Web site anonymously that's hosted on a computer in the United States and get away with it.
"If you try to put a neo-Nazi site on a German computer, it will be removed and you could be prosecuted."
Most complaints Kessler receives are from people who have received unwanted hate propaganda. Sometimes, albeit rarely, people are threatened.
In the line of duty, Kessler has received death threats.
"After we contacted Yahoo! about a bunch of clubs on their service that were in violation of their rules, someone created a new club there and the headline was 'death to Jordan Kessler of the ADL.' "
It is frightening to see that on the screen, he says, "particularly when one does not know who is doing it ... He could live in Zimbabwe for all I know ... or he could be right down the street."
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