I concluded the article by referring readers to a then recently created Web site called Hatewatch, a watchdog site that indexed and linked to hate groups on the Internet in order to expose them, while also linking to sites devoted to debunking hate propaganda. Citing a statement by essayist Logan Pearsall Smith -- "How it infuriates a bigot when he is forced to drag out his dark convictions" -- Hatewatch operated on the principle that the best way to combat hate was to expose it for what it was, to fight hate speech with more speech.

So I was shocked last month to read that Hatewatch was shutting its doors. First started in 1995 by a Harvard Law School librarian named David Goldman, Hatewatch was the first major site to track online hate groups -- the neo-Nazis, white supremacists, Holocaust deniers, Klansmen, black nationalists and gay bashers who saw the Internet as their chance to spread their messages to the world. It attracted incredible media coverage, helped to focus public attention, provided a reference for law enforcement and attracted 1 million visitors a year.

But Goldman thinks that Hatewatch has done its job. "We have succeeded in fulfilling the mission we set for ourselves," he wrote in a farewell message posted on the site. After six years of heading the volunteer-run organization, Goldman was ready to move on. Bolstered by news that hate sites simply weren't proving to be such powerful recruitment tools as many had feared and by indications from other anti-hate organizations that the prognosis wasn't as dire as once believed, Hatewatch's founder argued that while hate groups once flourished in the shadows, they simply couldn't thrive under the bright lights of the Internet:

From the beginning, these organizations' self-proclaimed desire to create a digital "white revolution" was carefully monitored and documented by civil rights organizations, Hatewatch among them. The standard and often repeated quote was that the "Internet is the greatest thing to happen to hate." Much to our joy it has in fact been one of the worst.

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Goldman says the slumping Internet economy was not a factor in the decision to shut down Hatewatch. Although Hatewatch was a registered nonprofit agency, it got scant funding. At the same time, it required very little money to run. Hatewatch benefited from the efforts of hundreds of unpaid volunteers every month, and Goldman and the four other employees never drew a salary. It was simply time to pass the torch.

"I felt as if I needed to step back from the material itself -- and, hopefully, for people to see the vacuum that was left by Hatewatch to step into that. I'm not a professional civil rights activist. I'm a librarian by trade."

Goldman's decision to shut down Hatewatch was roundly criticized by other anti-hate organizations, like the Anti-Defamation League and the Simon Wiesenthal Center. If hate sites had turned out to be less threatening than expected, wasn't that due, in large part, to the efforts of sites like Hatewatch? A closer look at how hate groups use the Internet suggests that, if anything, Hatewatch was due for an expansion.

Hatewatch has always been controversial. Film critic Roger Ebert famously attacked it, and debated Goldman at the Conference on World Affairs. By linking to hate sites, Ebert argued, Hatewatch gave free publicity to haters, providing a "virtual supermarket" of hate tools for bigots of all stripes. While other sites, like the ADL's, flagged the lies and distortions on hate sites, Hatewatch merely provided links to sites -- where the groups could describe themselves however they wanted.

Still, Hatewatch was an effective tracking tool. If the Internet was going to turn small, isolated groups into a large, organized movement, Hatewatch was going to ensure that such an expansion took place in the open. And it succeeded in that goal, drawing thousands of visitors a day and extensive media coverage.

But Hatewatch's success was limited by its own design. In fact, Hatewatch was based on a number of largely unfounded fears about the way that hate on the Web would proliferate.

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