Since its earliest days, the internet has been hailed as a uniquely open marketplace of ideas and it’s become an essential means for people to access information and services. The downside of this is that, alongside its many valuable resources, the internet also offers a host of offensive materials – including hateful content – that attempt to inflame public opinion against certain groups and to turn people against one another.
The line between hate speech and free speech is a thin one, and different countries, platforms and communities have different levels of tolerance. The line is even thinner in digital environments where hateful comments posted lawfully in one country can be read in other countries where they may be deemed unlawful.
The Responding to Online Hate guide assists law enforcement personnel, community groups and educators in recognizing and countering hateful content on the Internet – especially as it pertains to youth.
Canada is a highly connected country: 96 percent of us have access to the internet. As technologies have improved to allow corporations, law enforcement and others to gather information and monitor activities online, media reports about violations or breaches of privacy are more and more frequent.
In 2017, a research group discovered that what boys are seeing in the media and what they actually believe are vastly different.
The pressure put on teens through ads, television, film and new media to be sexually attractive—and sexually active—is profound. Not only that, but media representations of relationships often teach unhealthy lessons.
They have ads of how you should dress and what you should look like and this and that, and then they say, 'but respect people for what they choose to be like.' Okay, so which do we do first?"
Kelsey, 16, quoted in Girl Talk
Since the 1960s, feminists have argued that "it matters who makes it." When it comes to the mass media, "who makes it" continues to be men.
This section addresses the representation of men, boys and masculinity in the media. It covers topics such as media stereotypes of masculinity, how children see masculinity portrayed in media and how various media contribute to stereotypes of masculinity and male authority in sports and advertising. It also addresses the role that the media play in shaping attitudes about masculinity.
Although many concerns remain about how gender represented in media, there are signs that things are changing. Roles for women on television, in particular, have become much more varied and complex in the last decade, ranging from the conflicted Star Wars hero Ahsoka to Marvel characters such as Echo and Ms. Marvel to more realistic characters like Never Have I Ever’s Devi, while a growing number of movies and TV shows are questioning narrow definitions of masculinity.