#online-radicalization

#online-radicalization

Her fiance, Shannon Johnson, was a restaurant inspector there. She didn't panic until, driving home, she heard on the radio that the victims were employees of the desert city's environmental health department. She grabbed her phone and dialed Shannon's number over and over, but it kept going straight to voicemail. That's when, she said, she knew, "in my bones," he was gone.

Extremist groups like cults, conspiracy thinking, which has become rampant in a digital age, and the types of political radicalization that are proliferating in online spaces are all related to the same underlying process, which is that of scam culture. Scam culture is defined as predatory processes that exploit individual vulnerabilities for profit. For instance, conspiracy thinking is often promoted by prominent influencers in online spaces as a way to not only advance their content but specifically monetize and profit off of users' fears.

SACRAMENTO - An alleged leader of a white supremacist transnational terrorist group called the Terrorgram Collective has pleaded guilty to conspiracy to solicit hate crimes, signing an agreement that admits the group was plotting to start a race war with the hopes of collapsing "government and society." Dante Iacoviello pleaded guilty to conspiracy on Sept. 26, just two weeks after he was charged.

The misogyny and toxic masculinity that Jamie discovered in online communities fuel his radicalization toward violence. Most internet communities are not inherently dangerous, and yet it's fair to ask whether a specific online culture could have influenced the assassin who gunned down conservative activist Charlie Kirk. It is a culture, cultivated on social networks and messaging platforms, where killing seems performative and where human life has no intrinsic value.

Jordan Brann, who attended Pine View High School in St. George, Utah, posted a video on TikTok calling Robinson a 'Reddit kid,' a slang term used to describe young people heavily influenced by Reddit culture. The phrase often carries a mocking tone, implying someone is deeply immersed in online communities, memes, or internet-driven beliefs. 'I went to school with Tyler Robinson,' Brann said in the now-deleted TikTok.

Holly's TikTok accounts contained white supremacist symbols, the Anti-Defamation League said, and the name of his most recent account included a reference to a popular white supremacist slogan. The account was unavailable on Friday. TikTok said accounts associated with Holly had been banned. Holly's family could not be reached. The Associated Press left a message at a telephone number associated with the house that police searched after the shooting.

Over the past 15 years, I briefed each of these companies about this complex issue. The first such briefing, back in December 2010, focused on my research on how Al-Qaeda and other terrorist groups were using YouTube to radicalize young people in the West. At Google's invitation, I met with senior Google representatives, including its head of public relations and policy, senior policy manager, senior policy counsel and free speech attorney, at the company's Washington, D.C., office.