Online youth radicalization
Online youth radicalization is the action in which a young individual or a group of people come to adopt increasingly extreme political, social, or religious ideals and aspirations that reject, or undermine the status quo or undermine contemporary ideas and expressions of a state, which they may or may not reside in. Online youth radicalization can be both violent or non-violent.
The phenomenon, often referred to as "incitement to radicalization towards violent extremism" has grown in recent years, due to the Internet and social media in particular. In response to the increased attention on online "incitement to extremism and violence", attempts to prevent this phenomenon have created challenges for freedom of expression. These range from indiscriminate blocking, censorship over-reach, and privacy intrusions—right through to the suppression or instrumentalization of media at the expense of independent credibility.
The article also explores how online radicalization can involve misogynistic and gender-based ideologies, particularly targeting young men through social media algorithms and influencers who promote harmful views under the guise of self-improvement. After terrorist attacks, political pressure is often put on social media companies to do more to prevent online radicalization of young people leading to violent extremism. UNESCO calls for "a policy that is constructed on the basis of facts and evidence, and not founded on hunches—or driven by panic and fearmongering."
Cyberspace is used to denote the Internet, as a network of networks, and social media as a social network that may combine various Internet platforms and applications to exchange and publish online: the online production of radical resources or content, the presence of terrorist or radicalized groups within the social networks, and the participation of young people in radical conversations.
Definitions and approaches
Radicalization refers to the processes by which individuals or groups come to adopt beliefs that challenge or reject established political, social, or religious norms. In some cases, these beliefs may be used to justify participation in or support for acts of violence, often framed as necessary or morally justified actions in pursuit of ideological or political goals. Definitions of radicalization vary across academic, governmental, and policy contexts; however, most characterize it as a gradual or staged progression.In the context of online radicalization, the term youth typically refers to individuals in adolescence or early adulthood. The exact age range for youth in this context varies depending on the source. The United Nations refers to youth as individuals between the ages of 15-24 years old, primarily for statistical purposes. Other sources, including academic research and governmental policies, may extend this age range up to 29 years old to account for ongoing social, cognitive and emotional developmental milestones. Youth radicalization is often considered a distinct category due to these developmental factors that may increase young people's vulnerability to radical ideologies and recruitment strategies, especially in the online environment.
Algorithmic radicalization
Youth and violent extremism
Specificities of social media
The Internet has remained a medium for the spread of narratives. It has often been mistaken as a driver of violent extremism rather than the medium that it is. Unfortunately, social media has not only been used to bring people closer, to share thoughts and opinions, but also to spread false information. Additionally, the application of privacy rules has made it easier for closing the niche and advancing the targeting of vulnerable individuals. These privacy rules though welcomed, have made the process of analysis for prevention; challenging.Chatrooms
can be embedded within most Internet-based media. Reports that have looked into the use of chatrooms by violent extremist groups describe these as the space where at-risk youth without previous exposure would be likely to come across radicalizing religious narratives. This falls in line with Sageman's emphasis on the role of chatrooms and forums, based on his distinction between websites as passive sources of news and chat rooms as active sources of interaction. According to Sageman, "networking is facilitated by discussion forums because they develop communication among followers of the same ideas, reinforce interpersonal relationships and provide information about actions ". Chatrooms can also include spaces where extremist people share information such as photos, videos, guides, and manuals. Discussion forums such as Reddit, 4chan, and 8chan have become focal points on internet meme-based and other forms of radicalization.The terrorist perpetrator of the Christchurch mosque shootings live-streamed, on Facebook, a video of the attacks which resulted in the deaths of 51 people; this was then extensively shared on social media. In the wake of this tragedy, Facebook and Twitter became more active in banning extremists from their platforms. Facebook pages associated with Future Now Australia have been removed from the platform, including their main page, "Stop the Mosques and Save Australia." On March 28, Facebook announced that they have banned white nationalist and white separatist content along with white supremacy.
YouTube and other video platforms
has the advantage of being difficult to trace the identity of people posting content, while offering the possibility for users to generate comments and share contents. Several researchers have conducted content analyses of YouTube and Facebook extremist discourses and video contents to identify the production features most used, including their modus operandi and intended effects. Studies that have focused on the rhetorical strategy of extremist groups show the multifaceted use of online resources by extremist that is, they produce "hypermedia seduction" via the use of visual motifs that are familiar to young people online, and they provide content in several languages, mostly Arabic, English and French using subtitles or audio dubbing, to increase the recruitment capacity of youth across nations. These videos provide rich media messaging that combines nonverbal cues and vivid images of events that can evoke psychological and emotional responses as well as violent reactions. Terrorists capture their attacks on video and disseminate them though the Internet, communicating an image of effectiveness and success. Such videos in turn are used to mobilize and recruit members and sympathizers. Videos also serve as authentication and archive, as they preserve live footage of actual damage and they validate terrorist performance acts. In 2018, researchers from the Data & Society thinktank identified the YouTube recommendation system as promoting a range of political positions from mainstream libertarianism and conservatism to overt white nationalism.Video games
Video games can be placed in a similar category as social media because they increasingly have their own forums, chatrooms and microblogging tools. Video games, widely used by young people, are under-researched in relation to extremism and violent radicalization. There is mostly anecdotal evidence that ISIS supporters have proposed the modification of some games to spread propaganda, mods that allow players to act as terrorists attacking Westerners, and provide for hijacking of images and titles to allude to a notion of jihad.Selepak used qualitative textual analysis of hate-based video games found on right-wing religious supremacist groups’ websites to explore the extent to which they advocate violence. The results show that most hate groups were portrayed positively, and that video games promoted extreme violence towards people represented as Black or Jewish people. The games were often modified versions of classic video games in which the original enemies were replaced with religious, racial and/or ethnic minorities. Their main purpose is to indoctrinate players with white supremacist ideology and allow those who already hold racist ideologies to practice aggressive scripts toward minorities online, which may later be acted upon offline. Some experimental social psychologists show that cumulative violent video games can increase hostile expectations and aggressive behavior.
Uses of Internet and social media by extremist groups
The Internet and social media have numerous advantages for extremist groups using religion as part of a radicalization strategy. The advantages stem from the very nature of Internet and social media channels and the way they are used by extremist groups. These include communication channels that are not bound to national jurisdictions and are informal, large, cheap, decentralized, and anonymous. This allows terrorists to network across borders and to bypass time and space. Specifically, these channels provide networks of recruiters, working horizontally in all the countries they target due to the transborder nature of the Internet.Weinmann describes extremist groups’ use of Internet and social media in eight process strategies: "psychological warfare, publicity and propaganda, data mining, fundraising, recruitment and mobilization, networking, information sharing and planning and coordination". Conway identifies five-core terrorist uses of the Internet and social media: "information provision, financing, networking, recruitment and information gathering". The ones most relevant to social media and radicalization of young people are information provision, such as profiles of leaders, manifestos, publicity and propaganda, and recruitment. Some studies show that social media enables people to isolate themselves in an ideological niche by seeking and consuming only information consistent with their views, as well as simultaneously self-identifying with geographically distant international groups, which creates a sense of community that transcends geographic borders. This ability to communicate can promote membership and identity quests faster and in more efficient ways than in the "real" social world.
While recruitment is not an instantaneous process, it is seen in the literature as a phase of radicalization, taking the process to a new level of identification and possible action. Indoctrination is easier post-recruitment and often occurs in specific virtual spaces where the extremist rhetoric is characterized by a clear distinction between "them" and "us", and where violent actions are legitimized according to the principle of "no other option available". These advantages of the Internet and social media open up prospects for extremist groups, by facilitating what used to be referred previously as block recruitment and by substituting group decision to individual decision-making.