The term hate crime is rather new since the first crimes based on offenders’ biases and hate appeared about twenty years ago. According to Bachman and Alvarez (2016), a hate crime is a “criminal offense against a person, property, or society” motivated by the offender’s bias against a race, gender, ethnicity, religion, disability, or sexual orientation (p. 239). Racial hate crimes are the most widespread bias crimes in the United States. In the digital era, the number of harassment and persecution cases is constantly increasing.
One of the most recent cases of racial harassment occurred during the COVID-19 pandemic in Zoom meetings. White supremacists harassed non-white participants of online conferences, bombarding Zoom chat’s features and sending “racist, cowardly taunts” to the participants (Hayden, 2020, para. 5). Moreover, offenders used Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube to promote racial abuse and anti-immigrant programs. Haters published and distributed racist and antisemitic flyers on college campuses in 2016, using fax machines (Hayden, 2020). By committing these and other crimes, white supremacists wanted to allege dominance over racial minorities.
Although hate crimes committed via the Internet and mass media are not as harmful as robberies, murders, or other acts of physical violence, they lead to discrimination, social isolation, intolerance, and hatred. To understand and avert bias crimes in the future, people should involve different agencies, schools, police, and other establishments and seek support. Educational establishments should create programs that will turn biases and prejudices around and propagate positive stereotypes instead of negative ones. Those people who are more likely to be harassed should be informed about the existing ways to deal with haters.
In conclusion, it is harder to stop hate crimes today because of the multiple possibilities of the Internet. At the same time, these possibilities allow people to promote anti-haters campaigns and protect their rights and liberties on the Internet too. Moreover, online hate groups can be detected and stopped easily. The police and other organizations should take advantage of modern technologies to prevent and fight hate crimes and other types of crimes.
References
Bachman, R., & Alvarez, A. (2016). Violence: The enduring problem (3rd ed.). SAGE Publications, Inc.
Hayden, M. E. (2020). Why white supremacists are targeting zoom meetings during the COVID-19 pandemic. SPLC Southern Poverty Law Center. Web.