Since its inception as a popular interactive medium, cyber space has attracted varied
types of users who use internet communication technology (ICT) and digital
communication technology (DCT) with different motives. While positive use of the ICT
and DCT has been seen as a boon to new social as well as scientific developments for the
benefit of human kinds, negative use of the ICT and DCT has on many occasions eclipsed
the positive side. Users of ICT and DCT found this medium of communication as a free
platform to express their feelings since cyber space solicit anonymity, quick publication of
views and a large world wide audience to make the user feel worthy of his/her words.
Added with this weak laws to regulate negative expressions in the cyber space and less
monitoring of the user generated contents by the social networking sites (mainly due to
the huge inflow of data and less number of staff in the social networking sites to monitor
such data) have encouraged individuals to use cyber space as a medium to express and
execute hate through ICT and DCT. Danielle Keats Citron emphasizes on this very issue
in this particular book: Hate crimes in cyber space.
In the introduction, the author begins the book with the story of âAnna Mayerâ and
her experience of cyber harassment and cyber stalking whereby her privacy was infringed
by anonymous posters, her future job prospects were affected and she was left terrified.