A/67/326 xenophobia and related intolerance, in his 1997 report, stated that the Internet had become the new battleground in the fight to influence public opinion. While it was still far behind newspapers, magazines, radio and television in the size of its audience, the Internet had already captured the imagination of people with a message, including purveyors of hate, racists and anti-Semites (E/CN.4/1997/71). 18. As Internet technology has developed, extremist hate sites have grown in both number and technological sophistication. In 2008, it was estimated that since 1995, when the first extremist hate website was identified, the number of such websites and other Internet postings had grown to 8,000; of those, the largest proportion was constituted by online content related to racism and racial hatred. 3 As stated in the reports of his predecessor (A/66/312, para. 101, and A/66/313 and Corr.1), the Special Rapporteur is alarmed by the use of the Internet and social media by extremist groups and individuals to disseminate racist ideas and propagate racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance. Many States raised concerns regarding the increased use of the Internet to proliferate, promote and disseminate racist ideas by extremist political parties, movements and groups (see A/66/312). Concerns were also raised by non-governmental organizations and relevant United Nations organizations about the use of media, including the Internet, to proliferate and promote racist content; the increased number of incidents of racist violence and crimes against, in particular, ethnic and religious minorities and migrants; and the existing lack of adequate data on such violence and crimes (ibid.). 19. Furthermore, extremist groups and movements, particularly far right movements, use the Internet not only as a means to disseminate hate speech and incite racial violence and abuse against specific groups of individuals, but also as a recruitment platform for potential new members. The Internet is exploited in expanding their networks of individuals, movements and groups, as it allows the dissemination of information about their aims and facilitates the sending of invitations to various events and meetings. It is used also by extremist movements and groups to disseminate newsletters, video clips and other materials. It is also of great concern that open calls for violence against individual anti-racism activists are placed on neo-Nazi websites to intimidate, exert pressure or stop social or political actions or activities directed against extremist groups. Cases were reported in which personal details of active opponents of hate or extremist groups were included in such calls for violence and as a consequence they were attacked physically. 4 20. The Special Rapporteur would like to underline the importance of further examining the correlation between various manifestations of racism on the Internet and the actual hate crimes committed. Given the lack of adequate data on this link, it is important that the relevant authorities enhance their efforts to identify, investigate and register hate crimes. Those efforts are critical, especially in combating the negative psychological influence of such racist online materials on youth. __________________ 3 4 12-46982 See Simon Wiesenthal Centre, “iReport, online terror + hate: the first decade (2008)”. Available from http://www.wiesenthal.com. See A/HRC/20/38, para. 11; and Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR), “Report of OSCE-ODIHR activities on hate on the internet”, ODIHR.GAL/77/10 (Warsaw, 27 October 2010). 7