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Electronic hate

Discussion forum haven for racists

Darrell Greer
Northern News Services

Rankin Inlet (Nov 15/00) - Ken Haines wants to clean up online trash.

Haines, who is in charge of Sakku Computers and Electronics in Rankin Inlet, has had enough of racist and hate-filled messages appearing on the company's Internet discussion board.

Last week, he suspended the site (www.arctic.ca) until he figured out what to do about the problem.

"The site had just become too vulgar," says Haines.

"It came back online this past Monday and I have more control now. People have to go through a registration process and add a valid e-mail address.

"There's more tracking built into the scripts so that if I have to ban someone, it will automatically ban their e-mail and IP address and won't let them reregister."

Some of the recent postings show the extent of the problem.

Anyone who has access to the Internet could view the following messages:

"White man will rule you," reads one reply.

"You wish white people would rule the world, but, face it, white trash, you won't," says another.

"Down with the white man."

Further down the page there were references to genocide: "Hitler was white and got rid of the Jews. If only he could have finished his job and got rid of all non true white men."

"The cause of our native fall is the white man,"

"Qablunaaq native haters."

Legal matters

Haines says he is also looking into whether the racist postings are illegal.

"It's definitely hate mongering and I'm trying to track down the people who are doing it. I received a number of complaints about the site and that led to the suspension."

He says one problem is users who are on a private network log onto the Web site through a proxy gateway.

The gateway takes over the user's address, preventing Haines from tracing their e-mail address.

"I can block the proxy address, but then that knocks out all the other users on that system who were posting in good faith.

"I had to do that once with the Nunavut Government system when some people were posting who weren't, shall we say, very nice.

"I banned the NG proxy so all the government workers couldn't post on our discussion forum. Turns out, the government workers were making up 60 to 70 per cent of the posts."

Haines says his company would not be liable if a user sues or charges were brought against illegal postings.

But law enforcement officials would request to view his company's logs.

"They would go through the logs and trace the person down. The person doing the postings is ultimately liable."

Difficult to enforce

Police say punishing those who post hate material on the Internet can be difficult.

The RCMP says Internet crimes -- distribution of child pornography, hate propaganda and pyramid schemes -- are traditional crimes committed using an electronic medium and should be referred to local police for investigation.

Rankin Inlet RCMP Sgt. Tom Kasdorf says the majority of those posting racist or hate messages are simply looking for an audience.

He says people tend to be brave on the Internet because they don't have to reveal their identity.

"It might be a sad commentary, but you see this type of thing everywhere," says Kasdorf.

"I hear it all the time in my line of work, but your own beliefs are what's important."

Kasdorf says local police tend not to get involved unless a statement is advocating genocide or sexual in nature.

He says many postings fall under civil jurisdiction and, if libelous, a person who feels they've been slandered should get a lawyer.

"It's difficult. You have to prove the person posted the message in bad faith.

"Unfortunately, there are things you just have to become thick- skinned about."

Individuals who make racist posts will usually go away if there's no response, he adds.

"They're looking for an audience and trying to get people ticked off against each other.

"Although difficult to swallow sometimes, that approach to hate mongering doesn't work if you don't let it. It all comes back to what you believe."