ADL focuses on antisocial media

SALEM – Marblehead Police Chief Robert Picariello and Swampscott High School Vice Principal Lytania Mackey were honored Thursday at the Anti-Defamation League’s annual Law and Education Day, a gathering of about 250 community and civil rights leaders to celebrate the league’s annual accomplishments and discuss efforts to combat hate speech spreading through social media.”People call the Anti-Defamation League every day for a number of reasons, and the majority of calls for help we get are from schools – either school administrators or parents – and the number one issue people are faced with now in the school communities is the use of social media and how it impacts students,” said Robert Trestan, the New England regional director of the Anti-Defamation League.The Essex County Law and Education Day is an annual event held by the ADL where the organization updates local law enforcement and guests on efforts to combat hate speech and hate crimes. Each year has a specific theme based on current events, and this year’s topic was the use of social media to spread hate and incite violence.”Social media has been a powerful driver of our consciousness and has helped to bring together individuals and groups separated by great distances, cultures, and political boundaries,” said keynote speaker state Attorney General Maura Healey in a statement. “Unfortunately, these tools can also be used to divide us. Too many people use the power of the Internet to espouse hate and bigotry. I applaud the Anti-Defamation League for its efforts to curb these abuses and to give individuals, members of law enforcement, and communities the tools and strategies they need to limit the harm caused by prejudice spread over the Internet.”Trestan said that social media is being used by extremists across the world to spread hate and incite violence – regardless of international boundaries, ethnic groups or religious beliefs. But the United States has a unique challenge in trying to combat these messages of hatred.”In the U.S. we have First Amendment protections that nobody else in the world has, and we need to be very creative and very vigilant in addressing this issue,” Trestan said.Particularly when hatred and violence can take so many forms and be spread in so many social media applications – from mean jokes on Facebook, to Jihadist websites, to sexting.”Everyday, someone is using the Internet for the first time, and most of those new users are children,” Trestan said. “If we don’t teach them, then we are going to have a society that doesn’t know how to be safe online.”To honor efforts to keep people safe online, the ADL presented two Community Service Awards.Swampscott High School Vice Principal Lytania Mackey was honored with an award for implementing the ADL’s A World of Difference Program, an anti-bias workshop that has trained 180 Swampscott students since 2012.”Students are armed with such knowledge now,” Mackey said Thursday afternoon. “They see things trending on Twitter and want to bring to me situations in the world and figure out how they can apply them to Swampscott … they’re making a difference in others but also in themselves. They are able to talk about difficult concepts.”Marblehead Police Chief Robert Picariello was also honored with a Community Service Award. Marblehead Police have had to evacuate the high school several times due to bomb threats made via social media. The Marblehead community also rallied together this March to promote tolerance after a school committee survey on whether to eliminate certain religious holidays evoked concerns of anti-Semitism.”I was very honored to have been given this recognition by the ADL,” Picariello said. “They have long been a wonderful partner with law enforcement. The ADL is always there to help when asked, and it’s very much appreciated by everyone in law enforcement.”