Hate speech infiltrates social-networking sites, report says

[cnn-photo-caption image=http://i.cdn.turner.com/cnn/2010/TECH/03/15/hate.speech.social.networks/story.facebook.hate.speech.jpg caption="Online hate speech is 'almost all in the social-networking area,' Rabbi Abraham Cooper says." width=300 height=169]

Jesse Solomon
CNN

The unregulated nature of the Web has aided a proliferation of cyber-hate, according to a report the Simon Wiesenthal Center for Tolerance released Monday.

The report, Digital Terrorism and Hate 2010, notes that there are about 11,500 hate-affiliated Web pages, a 20 percent jump from last year's study.

According to the Wiesenthal Center, personal blogs as well as mainstream social-networking sites such as Facebook, MySpace, YouTube and Twitter are easily flooded with racist and terrorist-related content.

"The spike is not in traditional Web sites in the United States," said Rabbi Abraham Cooper, associate dean of the Simon Wiesenthal Center. "It's more global and almost all in the social-networking area."

Keep reading...