Hate Crimes In Cyberspace

The author examines the controversies surrounding cyber-harassment, arguing that it should be considered a matter for civil rights law and that social norms of decency and civility must be leveraged to stop it. --Publisher information.

Cyber hate can take many different forms from online material which can lead to actual offline abuse and violence, cyber violence; cyber stalking, and online harassment with the use of visual images, videos, chat rooms, text and social media which are intended to cause harm. This book examines the case for current guidelines dealing with online anti-Muslim abuse and concludes that we require a new understanding of this online behaviour and the impact it can have on vulnerable communities. It is unique as it focuses on new technology in the form of social media and the Internet and explores the challenges the police and other agencies face when confronting anti-Muslim abuse in cyberspace. It also provides a critique of how people are targeted by online offenders and helps us understand online anti-Muslim behaviour in a much more detailed and comprehensive way by bringing together a range of experts who will examine this phenomenon and critically discuss why they think it has become so much more prevalent than it was before.

What are cyber threats? This book brings together a diverse range of multidisciplinary ideas to explore the extent of cyber threats, cyber hate and cyber terrorism. This ground-breaking text provides a comprehensive understanding of the range of activities that can be defined as cyber threats. It also shows how this activity forms in our communities and what can be done to try to prevent individuals from becoming cyber terrorists. This text will be of interest to academics, professionals and practitioners involved in building social capital; engaging with hard to reach individuals and communities; the police and criminal justice sector as well as IT professionals.

Most Internet users are familiar with trolling—aggressive, foul-mouthed posts designed to elicit angry responses in a site’s comments. Less familiar but far more serious is the way some use networked technologies to target real people, subjecting them, by name and address, to vicious, often terrifying, online abuse. In an in-depth investigation of a problem that is too often trivialized by lawmakers and the media, Danielle Keats Citron exposes the startling extent of personal cyber-attacks and proposes practical, lawful ways to prevent and punish online harassment. A refutation of those who claim that these attacks are legal, or at least impossible to stop, Hate Crimes in Cyberspace reveals the serious emotional, professional, and financial harms incurred by victims. Persistent online attacks disproportionately target women and frequently include detailed fantasies of rape as well as reputation-ruining lies and sexually explicit photographs. And if dealing with a single attacker’s “revenge porn” were not enough, harassing posts that make their way onto social media sites often feed on one another, turning lone instigators into cyber-mobs. Hate Crimes in Cyberspace rejects the view of the Internet as an anarchic Wild West, where those who venture online must be thick-skinned enough to endure all manner of verbal assault in the name of free speech protection, no matter how distasteful or abusive. Cyber-harassment is a matter of civil rights law, Citron contends, and legal precedents as well as social norms of decency and civility must be leveraged to stop it.

This book highlights cyber racism as an ever growing contemporary phenomenon. Its scope and impact reveals how the internet has escaped national governments, while its expansion is fuelling the spread of non-state actors. In response, the authors address the central question of this topic: What is to be done? Cyber Racism and Community Resilience demonstrates how the social sciences can be marshalled to delineate, comprehend and address the issues raised by a global epidemic of hateful acts against race. Authored by an inter-disciplinary team of researchers based in Australia, this book presents original data that reflects upon the lived, complex and often painful reality of race relations on the internet. It engages with the various ways, from the regulatory to the role of social activist, which can be deployed to minimise the harm often felt. This book will be of particular interest to students and academics in the fields of cybercrime, media sociology and cyber racism.

Hate Crimes: Typology, Motivations, and Victims offers a fresh perspective on the study of hate crimes. With separate chapters on LGBT, race, religion, and gender motivated hate crimes, the book focuses on the various targets of these crimes and examines the theories and motivations that drive perpetrators to commit these acts of hate. To address the increase in hate crimes occurring on campuses and in cyberspace, the book also includes chapters on campus hate crimes and virtual hate. Editors Robin Valeri and Kevin Borgeson and their contributors draw on theories from criminology, psychology, and sociology to explore the ideologies of hatemongers and extremist groups. No competing text offers such in-depth and nuanced coverage of hate and the contributing factors to one of the fastest growing social problems in America. The newly updated second edition opens each chapter with a relevant case study and includes a new chapter on hate crimes targeting people with disabilities. To keep up with the ever-changing digital landscape, the chapter on virtual hate has also added a discussion on the role of gaming, gaming adjacent platforms, and gamification in spreading hate. A core text for courses on hate crimes as well as an excellent supplement for any social problems class, Hate Crimes: Typology, Motivations, and Victims provides important insights into the growth and evolution of the field of hate crimes and hate studies. The chapter themes make this a highly readable text for criminal justice, psychology, or sociology professors and students as well as practitioners in the field.