Simulated killings of other races have become a form of "entertainment" in computer games being sold via the Internet, according to research conducted by the (Australian) Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission.

The World Wide Web now provides racist groups a global audience at low cost. The Commission's research demonstrates that racist groups can use the Internet to vilify others, recruit new members and raise funds.

The Commission's research, which is available now on the Commission's website, shows the Internet is used to promote:

- racist groups - extremist literature - race hate music - racist games - notions of racial superiority and violence.

Racism is promoted via email, chat rooms, newsgroups and web order catalogues. Emails can distribute racist messages to thousands of people around the world. This material is accessible by anyone, including children.

"I find this material deeply disturbing," said Commissioner Jonas of the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission. "The images and computer games are particularly disturbing in their capacity to drain people of their humanity, to render them as sub-human and expendable. This is a new problem and we need to work out better ways of dealing with it."

It can be difficult to apply Australian anti-vilification laws to the Internet. "Like graffiti, it's not always easy to identify the authors of racist web pages," Commissioner Jonas said. "It's also difficult to apply Australian laws when racist groups use overseas Internet service providers" (ISPs).

Individual members of a victim group can lodge complaints to the Commission if they are vilified. However, representative organisations or other concerned citizens cannot make a complaint on their behalf. "This places a heavy burden on the victims of vilification, particularly when one person has to complain against an organised race hate group," Commissioner Jonas said.

The Commission held a Cyber-racism Symposium in October 2002 attended by senior representatives from the IT sector, government regulators, legislators, academics and racial equality groups. The summary report of the symposium - covering the difficulties of regulating cyber-racism, Australian and international approaches to the problem and suggested ways of tackling race hate such as education and blocking filters - is also available on the website today. The Commission and participants of the forum are continuing discussions about ways of limiting racially offensive material on the World Wide Web.

The Commission's research into Cyber-racism, including examples of racist content, can be found at: http://www.humanrights.gov.au/racial_discrimination/cyberracism/index.html