Volume 4 No 1 - Journal for the Study of Antisemitism

2012] INTERNATIONAL LAW AND ANTISEMITISM 65
although the freedom it promises against dictatorial regimes must be
weighed against the hazards it presents to open societies. Since the Internet
reflects, though it may also intensify, the antisemitism already present in
society, we should not condemn it outright for antisemitism but note that
the Internet and newer networking social media do serve as teaching
devices in the cause of tolerance. Whether for good or evil, in today’s
global world, any person is a potential publisher, any group can have its
own Web site(s), and any demonstration, meeting, or rally can place its
message and image online. Yet, the massive amount of material that flows
on the Internet and the multiple boundaries and jurisdictions it crosses make
monitoring it practically impossible. It includes traditional print, news
items, video, audio, and interactive conversation that are provided by
intermediaries like Google, Microsoft, Mozilla Firefox, Internet Explorer,
Facebook, MySpace, YouTube, Twitter, and others. Such intermediaries are
not bound by First Amendment guarantees of free speech. They are private
actors and have the right to refuse, censor or remove online speech, whether
out of business-profit calculation or ethical motives if they fear that advertisers
will pull out or that parents will object to vicious intolerance like
“Kill a Jew Day,” “Execute the Gays,” “Murder Muslim Scum,” or “How to
Kill a Beaner,” and switch to other sites. Using filters and other devices,
many intermediaries have interfered to censor, remove, or counter hate
speech, but many more have not, and the tens of thousands of hate sites
make it virtually impossible and too expensive for intermediaries or other
agencies to monitor them. Indeed, some of them are dedicated to hate
speech, whether out of profit or ideological fanaticism. As things stand,
advances in technology threaten to nullify national and international efforts
to regulate hate speech. Wikipedia offers an example of how a site can be
monitored to assure accuracy and wholeness: it sets a standard for submissions
that are reviewed by its editors and subject to evaluation by users, so
that articles get corrected, extended, enhanced, and rendered more authoritative
by additional or better sources in a continuing, unending process.
Such an elaborate process, however, is not workable or suitable to most
intermediaries because of the investment in time and costs it requires. 56
Defenders of the absolutist interpretation of the First Amendment
insist that emphasis should be put on conduct rather than speech, that no
new test need be applied to the Internet other than those that apply to radio
and television, that we should not let fear of “a new technology get the
better of us,” that “the public sphere [should be] open to all,” and that “First
56. Danielle Keats Citron and Helen Norton, “Intermediaries and Hate Speech:
Fostering Digital Citizenship for Our Information Age,” Boston University Law
Review, 91 (July 2011): 1479.