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Hate has found a new home -- one that is both global and anonymous, according to an expert at the Simon Wiesenthal Center. "For people who specialize in hate, propaganda, the Internet has become their chosen venue," said Mark Weitzman, the director of government affairs and director of the Task Force against Hate and Terrorism at the Simon Wiesenthal Center, who spoke about "cyberhate" at the Third International Conference on Human Rights at Kean University Jan. 29.

No longer do racists and anti-Semites pass out leaflets on street corners or drop pamphlets on people's doorsteps in the dead at night and risked "being exposed," Weitzman said.

"It's much easier to sit at a computer in some dark room and spew these things," he said.

Today, approximately 25 percent of the world's population, or 1.7 billion people, are online and in the United States, the number is probably closer to 90 percent, according to Weitzman.

The Internet "globalizes hate -- anyone can put something up for billions to see."

This has been especially true, according to Weitzman, given the popularity of new online social media in which users can post information without a third party mediating the content.

"Facebook, YouTube -- social media have become the largest form of communication for this generation," he said.

Weitzman explained that two principles guide cyberhate. One is that any group (race, religion, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, etc.) can be a target. The second, conversely, is that every group has its own extremists.

"No group is exempt from either side," he said.

Weitzman's PowerPoint presentation surveyed a variety of hate that can be found online from racist games to Web sites that falsify history.

In 1995, the Wiesenthal Center documented the fist hate site on the Internet. Fifteen years later, the center's database includes over 10,000 sites.

Some sites are straightforward in their bigotry, such as that of the Jewish Task Force, which after criticizing a Croatian band for its neo-Nazi lyrics became a forum for railing against all Croatian people and culture.

Some groups have turned their hate into a financial venture such as the N.J.-based Web site "Micetree," where a neo-Nazi group sells racist music.

Cyberhate has often taken the form of Internet games, which Weitzman said are particularly dangerous given that they appeal primarily to younger people who may be more impressionable.

"Not only are your defenses down," he said of playing games, "but you also identify with the characters."

One game, called "Border Patrol," encourages players to shoot Mexican immigrants crossing the border into the U.S.

The game, Weitzman said, takes a major social issue, in this case immigration, and feeds on stereotypes.

"No one depicted is hard working who wants to contribute to society," he said.

The game ends with a raised American flag. The usual 50 stars, however, have been replaced with a single star -- a Jewish star.

"The game operates on many levels," Weitzman said of how in addition to fostering stereotypes about immigrants, the game also propagates the anti-Semitic accusation of Jewish control of government.

Another game that melds prejudices is KZ Manager Millennium Hamburg Edition ("KZ" being the initials for the German word for concentration camp), which puts the player in the role of a camp commandant. The object of the game is to maximize prisoners' labor without killing them. The twist, however, is whom the prisoners represent, Weitzman said.

"The game is clearly modeled on the Holocaust, but the slave laborers are not Jews, but rather Turks," he said, an allusion to Germany's influx of Turkish day laborers in the 1990s.

Many Web sites, Weitzman said, traffic in "historical manipulation" ranging from one that posits the patently absurd claim that al-Qaeda is a myth invented by Jews in order to control the American government to others that are subtler in their deception.

In this latter camp is a site dedicated to repudiating the legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and the Civil Rights Movement in general.

"Admiration [for MLK is] shared by almost all Americans, but there's a minority of Americans that don't feel this way," Weitzman said.

This site in particular, he said, is "one of the most dangerous Web sites" because it takes a "more sophisticated approach" by removing neo-Nazi symbols such as swastikas or burning crosses.

"Yet, the site is as neo-Nazi and racist as you get," he said. "It is precisely because it doesn't have symbols that it's dangerous."

This outward appearance of legitimacy could potentially lead students to use the Web site for information, Weitzman said.

"If you're not too sophisticated, and not too aware, and don't have the guidance of someone more knowledgeable than yourself, then this will form your research," Weitzman said.

The danger of cyberhate, he said, is that practically all Americans and an increasing portion of the world are susceptible to this material.

"None of us can feel exempt," he said. "Any household who has a computer can be exposed to this."

Weitzman said he did not favor censorship laws, but rather urged that IP providers, being private entities, to take this content off their servers.

"That's not censorship," he asserted. "It's not the government passing a law, it is citizen activity."

Individual Internet users too can be proactive in combating this material by viewing "everything we see on the Internet with a healthy dose of skepticism" and asking questions about the Web site's source, message, and audience.

"If we ask those questions, we have a much better chance in dealing effectively and positively with these technologies," Weitzman said.

Dr. Hank Kaplowitz, executive director of the Human Rights Institute, told The Jewish State after Weitzman's presentation that the annual conference provided an opportunity to bring in prominent leaders in the field.

The other speakers at the conference were Morris Dees, founder and chief trial counsel for the Southern Poverty Law Center, and David D'Amico, a veteran law enforcement official who investigates biased crimes for the Monmouth County's Prosecutors Office.

"The major goal of the Human Rights Institute is to bring information and education about human rights, genocide, and the Holocaust," Kaplowitz said.

"We want our students, our community, to be aware of the problems and be aware of solutions," he added.