A Serious Downside to Social Networks

This is the screenshot of my search of "hate" on Facebook.

If you go on Facebook and search the word "hate," you will instantly find 500 groups that hate certain things. Of course, 500 is just the minimum and there are certainly more than 500 different groups. The hate ranges anything from "I hate school" to "I hate it when people ask for extra paper in exams. WTF are you writing?!"

But then you look at the very extreme, and quite disturbing range of that spectrum. There are groups on Facebook and other social networking sites that promote hate, racism, terrorism, etc. for certain people, countries, businesses, practices, religion, you name it! The list is never-ending and it has become a serious concern for many people.

According to the article, "Hate speech infiltrates social networking sites, report says," (by Jesse Soloman) cyber-hate has become increasingly vast and wide-spreading. The Simon Wiesenthal Center for Tolerance released a report titled "Digital Terrorism and Hate 2010" saying that there are about "11, 500 hate-affiliated Web pages, a 20 percent jump from last year's study."

Some of these web pages include directions to computer hacking, bombmaking, etc. The problem is, is that it is difficult to know whether or not these web pages are legit, are if they are just talk. This is known as the "lone wolf effect." This effect alone is what makes social networks and other affiliated sites disturbing sometimes: You sincerely hope these groups are just simply expressing their opinion, but deep down inside, there is a small fear that perhaps the cyber-hate might potentially turn into reality.