Combatting online hate speech
The majority of my blog posts have been about offensive cyber warfare, but I decided to switch gears to highlight the US Holocaust Memorial Museum’s podcast featuring danah boyd*, a researcher for Microsoft and a fellow at Harvard’s Berkman Center for Internet & Society, who is a frequent commentator on the nature of online hate speech. This podcast is part of the Museum’s bi-weekly Voices on Antisemitism podcast series—which offers a broad range of perspectives about anti-Semitism and cotemporary hate.
While Ms. boyd does not say anything particularly groundbreaking, I think she does a decent job of framing how increased visibility of hate speech—due to the Internet—can actually be advantageous. She cautions against impulses to ban hate speech as it may end up having the opposite effect and suggests that its visibility may rouse people to take action against it.
*Please note that I intentionally did not capitalize danah boyd’s first and last name. Ms. boyd prefers that her name be spelled in all lowercase characters— so although I find this preference odd, I have nonetheless obliged her request.