| Author: | David Callahan | |
| Istitutional affiliation: | University of Aveiro | |
| Country: | Portugal | |
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| Title: | The Hate Highway: Internet Rage | |
Abstract: |
Many people have no compunction, when they disagree with someone on the Internet, of posting such witty rejoinders as: “fuck off you boring slut ... i hope someone slits your throat and cums down your gob,” going into detail about how to carry it out. For Kathy Sierra, the object of this threat is: “These people are interested in rage and they think that if you aren’t enraged then you are part of the problem.”The freedom to represent one’s views outside any formally-controlled forum reveals human beings at their worst, in their lack of civility, and lack of belief in any form of social change that does not involve the violent oppression of opposition. The explosion in the possibilities of extending our lives as emotional teenagers indefinitely, directing our rage in whatever terms we select, and not taking responsibility for it before the object of that rage, has made the Internet the privileged site for discourses of hate, violence, and death. Given that this behaviour is largely supported through the provisions of American legislation that terms the Internet a public forum, as per the case Reno et. al. v. American Civil Liberties Union et. al. (1997), and therefore subject to the First Amendment protection of free speech, this paper will examine the situation in selected Commonwealth countries, and ponder the issues involved in the context of the claims of literature to be able to articulate whatever issues authors choose without censorship. | |