Is the Internet somehow to blame -- again? The murderous racist rampage by Benjamin Nathaniel Smith last weekend has reopened the question of the role of the Internet in promoting hate -- and even hate crimes -- among impressionable youths.
News reports note that Smith -- who killed two and injured nine before killing himself during a three-day, two-state shooting spree -- was a former member of a white supremacist group that calls itself the World Church of the Creator. The group, which has more than 40 chapters across the country, has built up its membership online, advocating a racial holy war. Its leader, 27-year-old Matt Hale, runs the group from his parents' home in East Peoria, Ill.
According to such monitoring groups as Hatewatch and the Southern Poverty Law Center, the loose-knit organization is among the fastest-growing hate groups in the country, with several hundred active members and thousands more who pay electronic visits to the "church" and its dozens of affiliated Web sites.