Young online gamers ‘being recruited by extremists'
The groups are using platforms adjacent to gaming sites, where players can chat and live stream, as 'digital playgrounds' for extremist activity, according to an Anglia Ruskin University research institute.
Some of those who joined these 'adjacent platforms' were directed into the 'playgrounds' through existing extremist channels, while others sought them out.
Another route saw gamers being 'groomed' on the sites by extremists, who then drew them into 'less regulated gaming-adjacent platforms, allowing extremist rhetoric to proliferate unchecked'.
One participant told the researchers: 'Direct sort of grooming or cultivation might start on games. That's where you have matchmaking.
'It's where you can build quick rapport with people. But that's the stuff that very quickly moves to adjacent platforms, where there's sort of less monitoring.'
High-profile figures such as Anders Breivik, the Norwegian neo-Nazi who killed 77 people, and Brenton Tarrant, who killed 51 people in Christchurch, New Zealand, were considered as 'idols' for aspiring extremists.
'Pseudo-military team-building approach'
'Respondents also mentioned the hyper-masculine environment in games such as GTA V and Call of Duty that can be appealing for individuals attracted to extremist spaces,' said the research.
'This often involves a pseudo-military team-building approach, where groups adopt survivalist and combat skills to unite against a shared adversary, typically the opponent of a particular extremist group.'
The research was carried out by Dr William Allchorn and Dr Elisa Orofino, senior research fellows at the International Policing and Public Protection Research Institute.
It included interviews with platform content moderators, tech industry experts and those involved in preventing and countering violent extremism.
The study found that far-Right extremism was the most common ideology shared on gaming-adjacent platforms. This included content promoting white supremacy, neo-Nazism and anti-Semitism, often accompanied by misogyny, racism, homophobia and conspiracy theories, including references to QAnon.
Islamist extremism was also reported, though less frequently, alongside 'extremist-adjacent' material such as the glorification of school shootings – all content that violates the terms of service of mainstream platforms, but often evades detection.
'Young and impressionable audiences'
Participants in the research said law enforcement needed to better understand how these platforms and their subcultures operated, and also stressed the importance of educating parents, teachers and children about the risks of online radicalisation.
Moderators who took part in the study expressed frustration at inconsistent enforcement policies on their platforms and the burden of deciding whether content or users should be reported to local law enforcement agencies.
In-game chat is unmoderated, but moderators looking at the games themselves still report being overwhelmed by the volume and complexity of harmful content, including the use of hidden symbols, which are often used to circumvent banned words.
AI tools are being used to assist with moderation, but they said they struggled to interpret memes or when language was ambiguous or sarcastic. Phrases such as 'I'm going to kill you' may be common in gameplay, but difficult for automated systems to interpret in context.
Dr Allchorn said: 'These gaming-adjacent platforms offer extremists direct access to large, often young and impressionable audiences and they have become a key tool for extremist recruitment.
'Social media platforms have attracted most of the attention of lawmakers and regulators over the last decade, but these platforms have largely flown under the radar, while at the same time becoming digital playgrounds for extremists to exploit.'
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