As GREG CALLAGHAN discovered, bigotry is alive and well on the Internet I T HAS returned: racism, the demon tha\, never seems to die - unleashed with fresh ferocity thanks to \,he ran ts of Pauline Hanson and her supporters. The most worrying thing about prejudice - wheti1er based on race, religion or sexual preference - is Its ability to send out spores and spread like a pOIsonous plant, and this Is nowher e more evident than on the Infor- mation free-for-aIl we call !.he Internet.. Last week In Los Angeles, In the first case of its kin d a man was convicted of using the lnternet to Inclt.e violence against Asian students . He was tr'y!ng to drive them off campus at the University of Southern OaliIornia. Surf a. wave of hate sites on the Net and you will recognise a sickeningly familiar pat tern: white heterosexuals are t he Ohosen People; Jews are at the centre of an international conspiracy, and blacks an d Asians must be marginallsed, U not downLrodden. MerclfuUy. the vast majority of t hese sites are based in the US Australia seems to enjoy an enviable absence of them. Jeremy Jones. vice-president of ___ ,ne page it says. "America must maintain Lhe ban on homosexuals in the military. In fact, It should strengthen its penalty from mere court. martial to t be dea tb pen a lty." Another page. called Hillary's Hellcats, claims. "Hillary (Ollnton's) woman friends Include lesbians. sex perver t.s, chUd mOlesters, Chrlsti. an haters and communists ... in the '60s she was active in the cop- kllllng, radical Black Pa n tbers group and also hard core communist organisations. "The virulence of sites (su ch as STRAIGHT) tends to rep ulse people. th us maklng them less dangerous," writes Greg Brodt'rlck, who operates a ,I \ in tIle US. "But some groups have broadened their support by moderating themselves to first-timers." BI'odertck names right· wing organis.ations such as the Traditional Values Coalition and the American Family Association - both of which advocate back- to·the-l 9 50s p oliCies of discrimination and inequallty -. as part 1cu larly Insidious. "You develop antennae to prejudice after a while," says Jeremy Jones. "It rarely has a single target. - U bigots don 't Ilke Jews, they lIsuaUy hate blacks and gays, and want 1.0 see women in subservient roles. That' s why wlJenever there's an outbreak of raCism, aU roups suffer. For Instance. Geoffrey Blal- ney's attack (on Asian Immigration) a few years ago opened the floodgates of prejudice alnst all groups."