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10 Miami Int'l & Comp. L. Rev. 155 (2001-2002)
Spreading Angst or Promoting Free Expression - Regulating Hate Speech on the Internet

handle is hein.journals/miaicr10 and id is 429 raw text is: Spreading Angst or Promoting Free Expression? Regulating Hate Speech on the Internet Joshua Spector* The regulation of speech on the Internet is purportedly commonplace throughout the world.1 Even if the United States takes no immediate interest in regulating speech over the Internet, foreign pressure is mounting for the United States to respect the laws of other States that restrict hate speech by assisting in preventing the distribution of hate speech to an international forum through the Internet. The U.S. interest in maintaining First Amendment liberties is set against tension resulting in part from the export of Neo-Nazi propaganda from the United States to states where such speech is prohibited.2 This tension will soon prompt countries such as France and Germany to pressure the United States to restrict Internet speech, thereby adopting an international standard for the prohibition of hate speech on the Internet. In the absence of an applicable international treaty, jurisdictional problems will blister litigation in the United States and abroad. In order to preserve the liberty of free speech in the United States, Internet speech must continue to benefit from the protection of the First Amendment, and other states must look for solutions within their sovereign authority. This note first contrasts the constitutional jurisprudence of free speech of Germany against the United States. The contrasting practices and doctrines are framed by a survey of international agreements on speech and a brief discussion of hate speech in the United States. The discussion then complicates the problems of speech by projecting it onto the Internet. In the United States the value of free speech is held in such high regard that the United States Supreme Court will not allow itself to * (J.D.) University of Miami School of Law, 2002. 'Leonard R. Sussman, Censor Dot Gov: The Internet and Press Foundation 2000, (Mayl5,2001), at http://www.freedomhouse.orglpfs2000/sussman.html. 2 Michel Rosenfeld, Hate Speech in Constitutional Jurisprudence: A Comparative Analysis, Working Paper Series No. 41 at 5, Social Science Research Network Electronic Paper Collection (April 2001), at http://papers.ssm.com/paper.tafabstractid=265939 (This article notes that web sites in California have been accessed by Neo-Nazi groups in Canada, Germany, or elsewhere).

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