"US laws around hate on the internet date back to the earliest chat rooms and bulletin boards. By the '90s, they'd begun to address electronic harassment. But the laws were narrow and generally addressed a method, say harassment over the phone, rather than a broad range of intimidating behavior, says Danielle Citron, a law professor at the University of Maryland and author of the book "Hate Crimes in Cyberspace." And they aren't used often, she says.
"We do have a suite of laws. We have been improving them over time, but we need to use them," Citron said. "When we don't use them, harassers just get to say 'f--- you' and walk away.""