Is virtual hatred real? Dealing with racism and intolerance on the internet

Do the worrying waves of hate crimes in a number of OSCE countries and the increasing volume of racist, xenophobic and anti-Semitic content on the Internet feed on each other? To exchange views on the subject, some 200 professionals from the Internet industry including staff from Yahoo, UPC and T-Online, experts from non-governmental organizations, and senior officials from participating States met under the auspices of the OSCE and the French Foreign Ministry in Paris on 15 and 16 June 2004. Shortly after the event, OSCE Press Officer Alexander Nitzsche invited Ambassador Yves Doutriaux, Head of the French Delegation to the OSCE, and Daniel Bryant, U.S. Assistant Attorney General for Legal Policy, to discuss some of the issue's complexities from their perspectives on different sides of the Atlantic.