Regulating Electronic Hate

An interesting letter is headed President Neil L. Rudenstine's way. As reported in The New York Times two weeks ago, the Simon Wiesenthal Center has dispatched a memo to university presidents and Internet service providers about hate and bigotry on the World Wide Web. The Wiesenthal Center, a Jewish human rights group based in California, suggests that universities and providers, such as Netscape, Inc., limit access to certain web pages that preach anti-Semitism, racism and violence.

The letter asks Rudenstine and others if their universities have any "rules of engagement for student, faculty, and employee use of your university's net." If so, the Wiesenthal Center wants to know about those regulations. If not, the center will propose a code of ethics that university presidents might want to adopt.

The issue at hand is similar to the debate regarding hate speech that raged through college campuses a few years ago, but it has undergone a technological metamorphosis. The current issue is slightly different from its recent cousin. Whereas with verbal speech, the controversy truly concerned only the given campus, Internet hate is accessible the world over. By providing access to racist and anti-Semitic web sites, universities are allowing such material to reach not only their own students but users all over the globe.

That access raises serious concern among watchdog groups. The Wiesenthal Center aims not to make hate speech illegal but to marginalize it. It asks institutions to establish moral criteria for what they present to the public, and in doing so, hopes to push groups to the sidelines which espouse bigotry and violence. But the Internet, and the World Wide Web in particular, has proven to be a challenging new front in that ongoing struggle.

Nineteen-ninety-five was by most accounts the year of the Internet. The World Wide Web exploded into people's homes, workplaces and, most notably, into student dorm rooms. With that explosion came a correlated rise in the number of sites devoted to hatred, xenophobia and racism.

In fact, the Web is the perfect forum for these ideas. Groups such as Aryan Nations have taken advantage of the Web's global access and its virtually unregulated use. The Web is a great equalizer. Any small organization can, with a little programming knowledge, construct a web site that looks as impressive as that of a corporate giant.

There are, however, a few limiting factors. The Wiesenthal Center is calling attention to two of these in its letter writing campaign. The first concerns web browsers, such as Netscape. These providers could block access to pages they deemed violent or racist. As private companies, they could offer services to the public that simply excluded certain options. This would be akin to a cable company's refusing to offer the Playboy channel as part of its package.

The second directly concerns students. Since the Internet is disproportionately available through the nation's universities, the policies set by those universities have tremendous sway over the general public. Georgia State University, for instance, allows racist pages to be posted through its web server with a disclaimer that the views are not necessarily those of Georgia State.

Universities could choose to adopt a code of ethics for their users, restricting access to offensive material in the same way private companies might. The Wiesenthal Center is pushing for such a solution, because its leaders know that bigotry and anti-Semitism on the Internet would be harder to find if universities did not allow access to such material, either by forbidding students to post it or by eliminating links to specified sites.

This issue is sure to loom larger as the year progresses. Congress has already broached the subject and may pass legislation restricting access to "indecent" sites within a few months. As public pressure to marginalize offensive material mounts, Internet providers and universities will have to take a serious look at their role in this very public issue. The Internet will have to be regulated; the question is, to what extent and by whom?

Solving the problem of hate on the Internet is complex. Universities, which have a special commitment to free speech and inquiry, are certainly different from private companies like Netscape. Few people would question the fact that Widener Library has multiple copies of Mein Kampf or even that it subscribes to journals on Holocaust revisionism. It seems necessary for a university to allow students the opportunity to study all aspects of current thought.

This issue, however, transcends the university. Harvard provides links to hateful, racist and violent sites to many non-academics beyond this campus. Can we hide these links behind the cloak of academic freedom as well, or does Harvard bear responsibility for proliferating this type of material? How much is Harvard a passive agent in the business of information, and how much does it bear moral culpability for the services it provides?

President Rudenstine and the Harvard administration should give the Wiesenthal Center's letter a serious response. Administrators must confront a classic university dilemma, writ large for the information age: academic institutions are committed to free speech and expression, but new information technologies spread damaging forms of speech as never before.

A Administrators should not deal with these problems alone. They now have a perfect opportunity to heed the recent cry for student empowerment. Any decision regarding Internet regulation that does not emerge from a University-wide scrutiny of the problem will be clumsy and will meet with disapproval. Campus leaders should be consulted. Town meetings run by the dean of the College should be held in the houses.

The violent and bigoted ravings of a small group of people have been elevated to prominence through the World Wide Web. We must not shy away from the problem. We must not waste the opportunity to make an important decision as a University.