Hate in the Digital Age

    The Internet and social media are proving to be a double-edged sword.  While they expand the possibilities of commerce and information-sharing, they are also used by terrorists(恐怖分子) to recruit members, to promote hate, and even to reveal ways to make bombs.  The Simon Wiesenthal Center, a global Jewish human rights organization, has been tracking potential（潜能,可能性） online violence and issued a report in New York City Thursday entitled 'Digital Terrorism and Hate 2011'”
    The report, issued on DVD, documents how terrorists and hate groups use such digital technologies as the Internet, smart phone apps, Skype, YouTube and e-books to not only distribute hate messages, but to act on them as well.
    Rabbi Abraham Cooper, associate dean of the Wiesenthal Center, says hate groups often post calls for violence, counting on anonymous(匿名的) individuals known as "lone¹ wolves" to act on them.  He notes that November’s deadly bombing of a Catholic church in Baghdad was preceded a month earlier by a specific threat online demanding that Catholics intervene in the Christian-Muslim dispute in Egypt.
    "What is so particularly disturbing about it is that this is not so much a warning as a threat to Catholics in Iraq that if they didn’t intervene with Coptic Christians² in Egypt, they would be attacked," he said.
    Nearly 60 men, women and children died in the attack.  More than 20 people were killed in the New Year’s Day bombing of a Coptic church in Alexandria, Egypt.
    Rabbi Cooper says there are as many as 14,000 websites, blogs, and social networking pages that direct hate against religious, ethnic³ and racial minorities.  He says the Internet is the perfect place to incubate hate, because it has no editors or librarians.   This, he says, allows  for lies and half-truths on well-designed web pages that influence the unsuspecting.  There are even online games, which allow a youngster in America score points by shooting Mexicans trying to cross the U.S. border, or one in Germany to eliminate Turkish immigrants.  Cooper notes that online hate now incorporates such animosities as Japanese vs. Koreans, Central Europeans vs. the Roma and various peoples of South Asia against one another.
    "We’re beginning to see globally that wherever you have contentious⁴ kinds of historic issues, or classic hatreds⁵, we’re beginning to see it percolate⁶ online as more and more people get access to these technologies," he said.
    The Wiesenthal Center shares its findings with government authorities whenever there is suspicion of possible violence.  The organization is also in contact with Facebook management to prevent the social networking site from being used as a platform for violence.  At the same time, officials at the center recognize the free speech and privacy rights of everyone using the Internet.
    "We’re looking at open source public material, and we’re just combing it, and we have translators（翻译器）," said the center’s director of government affairs, Mark Weitzman.  "It’s basically doing research using primary sources.   We’ve never hacked⁷ into anybody; we’ve never done anything illegal, never look into or try to break down the barriers there."Rabbi Cooper says the front line of hate that existed in the pre-Internet world is migrating online.  He shared his findings earlier with the New York City Police Department, noting that law enforcement officials worldwide must follow the Internet to pre-empt potential violence.（本文由在线英语听力室整理编辑）

1 lone   

adj.孤寂的，单独的；唯一的

参考例句：

• A lone sea gull flew across the sky.一只孤独的海鸥在空中飞过。
• She could see a lone figure on the deserted beach.她在空旷的海滩上能看到一个孤独的身影。

2 Christians   

n.基督教徒( Christian的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• Christians of all denominations attended the conference. 基督教所有教派的人都出席了这次会议。
• His novel about Jesus caused a furore among Christians. 他关于耶稣的小说激起了基督教徒的公愤。

3 ethnic   

adj.人种的，种族的，异教徒的

参考例句：

• This music would sound more ethnic if you played it in steel drums.如果你用钢鼓演奏，这首乐曲将更具民族特色。
• The plan is likely only to aggravate ethnic frictions.这一方案很有可能只会加剧种族冲突。

4 contentious   

adj.好辩的，善争吵的

参考例句：

• She was really not of the contentious fighting sort.她委实不是好吵好闹的人。
• Since then they have tended to steer clear of contentious issues.从那时起，他们总想方设法避开有争议的问题。

5 hatreds   

n.仇恨，憎恶( hatred的名词复数 )；厌恶的事

参考例句：

• He had more enimies and hatreds than anyone could easily guess from his thoughtful expression. 从他的思想表达方式难以被人猜透来看，他的敌人和仇家是不会多的。 来自辞典例句
• All the old and recent hatreds come to his mind. 旧恨新仇一起涌上他的心头。 来自互联网

6 percolate   

v.过滤，渗透

参考例句：

• The rain will percolate through the soil.雨水渗入土中。
• New fashions took a long time to percolate down.新时尚要很长时间才能在大众中流行起来。

7 hacked   

生气

参考例句：

• I hacked the dead branches off. 我把枯树枝砍掉了。
• I'm really hacked off. 我真是很恼火。