More web slave than web master: Internet hate speech, corporate ISPs and hard and soft law in the United States

Efforts to tighten European speech laws increased dramatically in 2001 with the Council of Europe's adoption of the Convention on Cybercrime. The Internet, however, is unrestricted by national borders and it is feared that relatively freer countries, namely the United States, could become so-called 'haven nations' for hate speech. But largely left out of the academic literature is any appreciation of the 'social soft law' regime in that country which routinely circumvents First Amendment speech rights. Although the US's Bill of Rights unquestionably entrenches free speech, which after the Yahoo! Case has clearly been held to apply to the Internet, due to the corporatisation of ISPs Internet speech in the US is actually highly controlled. The internet speech 'regulators' in question are certain 'human rights' NGOs, and their role has yet to be seriously analysed by legal academics. This article surveys the legal infrastructure supporting the social soft law regime in the US and provides an analysis of the NGO 'regulatory' activity that is allowed to take place. A particular focus of the article is the policing of anti-Semitic speech, and how it may be treated and, at times, abused by the NGO industry without sufficient scrutiny.