Hate+Sites+and+Digital+Natives

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Students of today spend more time on the internet than any generation before them. According to [|The Telegraph], the average teenager spends 31 hours a week online. 7 Surely at least some of this time is spent browsing new content; discovering new ideas and forming new opinions. During the most formative years of their lives, students are taking in an enormous amount of new information through the medium of the internet, and unfortunately some of this content can be described as hate-speech.

Hate sites are freely available on the internet and take mere seconds to access, even if you don't know what to search for. A simple search of the term "hate site" in the popular online encyclopedia [|Wikipedia] brings up several examples of hate sites promoting [|anti-semitism], [|homophobia] and [|racism]. (Warning, these links may not be appropriate for all viewers).

Educators must be aware of the fact that digital natives have a constant source of instant access to a world of ignorance, violence and hate. It is our duty to educate our students about hate sites in order to help them use the time they spend on the internet wisely.