Latest news with #Incel
Yahoo
19-05-2025
- Yahoo
Incel extremism doubles online amid Adolescence backlash
Incel extremism groups online have nearly doubled their membership amid a backlash against the Netflix hit show Adolescence. The largest active online incel platform has increased in size to 30,000 members from 17,000 in September 2022, according to research by the Centre for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH). The platform received a peak of more than 2.7 million visits in the first quarter of this year, with posts reflecting the misogynistic, racist and anti-Semitic tendencies of participants. The forum is the online home for thousands of involuntary celibates or incels, who often express hostility to women and wider society, blaming them for their lack of sexual and romantic experiences. In an analysis by the CCDH of more than 650 posts from the forum's discussion threads, researchers found that one in four contained misogynist hate, racism or anti-Semitic conspiracies. A majority of posts expressed disapproval of the Netflix series, with forum members claiming the show's central character was too attractive to be an incel, or that the show's writers had failed to distinguish the subculture from misogynist influencers such as Andrew Tate. Adolescence became Netflix's third most-watched English language show in its history. It follows a teenager who delves into online misogynist communities before murdering a female classmate. In its research, CCDH found that forum members posted about rape every 29 minutes, while 16 per cent of posts contained a misogynistic slur. Researchers also noted that the volume of posts on the forum had grown over time to reach a daily average of 2,340 posts. Imran Ahmed, CCDH's chief executive, warned that Incel ideology on the internet had grown and was not restricted to the dark web. 'The misogyny and extremism we saw three years ago have not only intensified, they've multiplied,' he said. 'Incel communities, where young men and boys are encouraged to hate and hurt women, are not hidden in the deepest recesses of the dark web – these communities of tens of thousands of men are operating in front of our children's eyes, accessible in the browsers of their cell phones. 'I encourage parents and schools to have deeper conversations with their children that span beyond the fictional show of Adolescence and into the reality of radicalisation facing young boys. 'This is an immediate crisis that demands more research and urgent action from policymakers, tech companies, and parents.' Broaden your horizons with award-winning British journalism. Try The Telegraph free for 1 month with unlimited access to our award-winning website, exclusive app, money-saving offers and more.
Sunday World
24-04-2025
- Sunday World
‘Obsessed' student allegedly commented ‘rape and murder on my mind 24/7' on Incel site, court hears
Arlo Kilpatrick, 21, also took a photograph of himself outside the victim's home and disclosed that he had written more than 30 love songs for her, a judge was told Arlo Kilpatrick, 21, also took a photograph of himself outside the victim's home and disclosed that he had written more than 30 love songs for her, a judge was told. An 'obsessed' Belfast student allegedly made comments about rape and murder under videos of a woman he posted on Incel forums, a court heard today. Arlo Kilpatrick, 21, also took a photograph of himself outside the victim's home and disclosed that he had written more than 30 love songs for her, a judge was told. Police claimed in one online message he stated: 'I support the rape and killing of women in real life.' Kilpatrick, of Florenceville Avenue in the south of the city, appeared at Belfast Magistrates' Court charged with stalking and threatening communications. The alleged offences were committed on March 28 this year. Police were initially alerted last June after the complaint, an active TikTok user, became aware that sexual fantasies about her had allegedly been posted on a men's self-improvement website. At that stage the investigation was closed due to issues with identifying any perpetrator. But the court heard the woman then joined the site and began contact in a bid to stop any further material about her appearing online. A PSNI officer claimed Kilpatrick then began an escalating campaign of behaviour against the complainant. 'He appears to have copied those videos from TikTok, posting them on Incel websites and writing under the thoughts of rape and murder,' she said. 'Recently, the defendant has taken a photograph of himself outside the front of her home address and posted it on that website.' The woman provided police with screenshots of a series of messages on the forum allegedly linked to Kilpatrick, the court heard. They included: 'She's an evil b***h', 'I hope she dies', 'rape and murder on my mind 24/7', and 'I support the rape and killing of women in real life'. Opposing bail, police expressed major concerns based on Kilpatrick knowing where she lives. 'He allegedly told her during the conversations that he was obsessed with her and had written over 30 love songs for her,' the officer revealed. 'By his own admission he is obsessed with her.' During police questioning Kilpatrick allegedly stated 'I wished death on her and I said in a song I hope she gets raped.' He told interviewing officers that he wanted the woman to see the messages to 'piss her off', but insisted it was merely a platform for posting extreme comments which were not serious. Asked his intention in publishing the photograph, he replied: 'I get that it looks like me trying to be a threat, but it was just me and this other guy from Lithuania from the forum.' Defence counsel Kelly Doherty confirmed her client accepted making 'totally unacceptable and horrible' comments. She argued that Kilpatrick, who is studying at Ulster University, has an attention deficit disorder and no history of aggression. Referring to the photo outside the woman's house, Ms Doherty submitted: 'He says it was done in a poor attempt at humour, there was no attempted threat.' Kilpatrick was refused bail and remanded in custody until May 7. Deputy District Judge Laura Ievers KC ruled: 'The real concerns relate to the potential for re-offending and interference with the witness.'
Telegraph
24-03-2025
- Entertainment
- Telegraph
Crongton, review: a zippy new adaptation of Alex Wheatle's Crongton Knights series
Are the kids alright? Definitely not is the feeling gripping the nation after Stephen Graham's Netflix hit Adolescence, which is facing calls to be shown in schools thanks to its galvanising storyline about teenage masculinity in crisis. Still, not all TV shows about the lives of young boys are entirely intent on depicting modern adolescence as a dystopian nightmare, at least not all of the time, at any rate. Certainly, Crongton, BBC Three's zippy new 10-part adaptation of Alex Wheatle 's YA series Crongton Knights, set on a fictional housing estate and focusing on a frightened 13-year-old boy caught up in a gang revenge plot, feels determined to warm the heart rather than chill the marrow. Where Adolescence offers no easy answers in depicting the mind-warping horror story of online Incel culture, Crongton serves up street violence, parental neglect and the awful loneliness of being a misunderstood teenager in distractingly lovely, pin-balling video game colours and the odd floating heart emoji. And it's mostly brilliant. It's a tragedy Wheatle, an under-sung YA novelist, never got to see this TV version: he died last week from prostate cancer. Adapted by Archie Maddox, the show notionally devotes each episode to a different teenager at South Crongton Comprehensive, such as Saira, newly arrived from war-torn Syria and Venetia, the daughter of devout Catholic parents still mourning the loss of her cousin to gang violence a year previously, yet determined to flood Crongton with positive vibes. The overarching story, though, belongs to the diminutive Lemar 'Liccle Bit' Jackson, who lives with his mum, older sister, baby nephew and grandmother in a cramped and noisy flat and who falls under the orbit of local gang leader Manjaro after Manjaro showers him with cash and affection. Soon Liccle Bit is hiding weapons in his bedroom and lying to his friends; it's typical of this show's deft deflection of hardcore reality that when he finally confesses what's going on to his mate Mckay, Mckay initially wants nothing to do with Liccle Bit's 'pickle'. Crongton feels properly fresh in its kinetic splicing of grimy naturalism with animated cartoon sequences (an estate brawl is depicted in kapow! style graphics) and the frequent screen raid by video game visuals and mobile phone graphics – a sniper's crossfire; a cascade of confetti. Director Ethosheia Hylton cleverly parallels life as imagined or dreamt of for its young protagonists with its harsher or more prosaic reality – Liccle Bit imagines Manjaro as a horror film villain with diabolic red eyes; a fight with neighbouring gang North Crongton takes places with splurge guns a la Bugsy Malone; the somewhat saintly Venetia dances in the playground as though life is one long heartwarming TikTok video. Meanwhile, the comedy is deliciously oddball – Mckay at one point engages in a roast with an evil cackling dinner lady – and at times downright surreal; science-mad teenager Juniper likes to conduct experiments in the school toilets. It's an ingenious use of disorientation, yes, people on the estate might get 'deleted' with alarming frequency, but Crongton also inhabits a tenderised teenage world quivering with giddy, escapist possibility. Most of the actors are making their TV debut – the producers cast it following a social media open call out – and the approach reaps both rewards and the odd wobble. Yet Samson Agboola sparkles as the baby-faced Liccle Bit, whose features are endearingly wide open and trusting. It's a measure of his performance that he also suggests how quickly Liccle Bit could become another sort of child, had a different path been taken. Maddox struggles to sustain a coherent panorama of estate life across 10 episodes – chapters devoted to periods or to Saira's experiences in Syria feel a bit shoehorned in – while the gang culture backstory, which involves a murder in a nightclub, conversely feels squashed. But if Adolescence is essential watching for parents, then Crongton is a pretty good equivalent for their offspring: a fizzing drama about choice and responsibility in which the kids might – just might – turn out alright.
Yahoo
28-01-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
'Pick-n-mix' ideologies: Why violent motivations are becoming harder to define
"Loners and misfits and young men in their bedrooms accessing all sorts of material online" - are these the "new threat" to our security? That's how Sir Keir Starmer put it as he told us last week that "terrorism has changed". The government says it has no plans to change the definition of extremism. So, then what does need redefining? Or does the "new threat" fall into some other category that perhaps in the US they would call "school-shooter"? Southport killer Axel Rudakubana is indeed a misfit, an aberration, but even the most clearly defined terrorists often are. Sometimes they have mental health problems. Often there's a criminal background and a pattern of escalating violence in their lives. In 2017, Khalid Masood killed four people and injured 50 when he drove a car down the pavement of Westminster Bridge, before fatally stabbing a police officer who was protecting parliament. Masood was a known extremist and Islamic State claimed responsibility for his actions, but research by criminologists at Birmingham City University found Masood's history of violence was a means to assert his "manliness" and regain power that may have been lacking elsewhere in his life. He also had a previous knife crime conviction, often got into fights and researchers say that "there is evidence that within prison he wanted to kill someone". No one is quite sure how Masood was radicalised, probably in jail, but perhaps he was just looking for a reason to justify his desire to kill - and extremism provided it. There is an argument that in many cases ideology is a mask, or at least secondary in significance to a person's violent nature. Our definition of terrorism comes from the Terrorism Act of 2000 and is the use of threat of violence designed to influence government or intimidate the public for the purpose of a political, religious, racial or ideological cause. The Incel movement New and weird forms of ideology can potentially form a plank for terrorism. The Incel (involuntary celibate) movement is one, and it definitely falls into the "misfit" category. This sub-culture is focused on members's feeling that they are being denied their right to intimate relationships. A deadly attack in a Toronto massage parlour in 2020 by an Incel-inspired man was described as an act of terrorism by a judge in Canada. Research by Swansea University for the Commission for Counter Extremism said this phenomenon was more aligned to the need for mental health support rather than counter-terrorism interventions, and that is partly where debate lies now with Rudakubana. He did get mental health support after it was determined he had an autism spectrum disorder, but he stopped engaging with it two years ago. The well-publicised deficiency in our mental health services needs as much attention here as any alleged failure in the anti-terrorism Prevent system. 'More volatile would-be terrorists' In October 2024, the head of MI5 Ken McCallum made the point that it was becoming harder to determine whether an act of violence was ideologically motivated or driven by another factor like mental health. He said: "We're encountering more volatile would-be terrorists with only a tenuous grasp of the ideologies they profess to follow. People viewing both extreme right-wing and Islamist extremist instructional material, along with other bits of online hatred, conspiracy theories and disinformation." Mr McCallum described a "dizzying range" of beliefs, "pick-n-mix" ideologies, and a "crowd-sourced model" where people pull on hatred and misinformation from a multitude of mostly online sources. He said: "Today, an attacker may have no connections to other terrorists. They might not be on our records. And there's often no claim of responsibility." 160,000 documents seized in Rudakubana probe Rudakubana again fits into the 'pic-n-mix' classification. He had a copy of Military Studies in the Jihad Against the Tyrants: The al Qaeda Training Manual, but he also had documents about Nazi Germany and the Rwandan genocide. From 160,000 documents seized and examined, it was concluded he was simply obsessed with extreme violence, not a political or religious ideology. You could say violence was his ideology. In October 2017, when teenagers Thomas Wyllie and Alex Bolland were arrested for plotting to massacre fellow pupils at their school in Northallerton, their planned actions too did not conform to an ideology. The seeming act of terrorism committed by Emad al Swealmeen in November 2021, when he blew himself up in the back of a taxi outside Liverpool Women's Hospital, was eventually found to be motivated by a mix of anger over his failed asylum application and poor mental health. Prevent and its deradicalisation programme The Prevent programme, set up to stop the spread of terrorism in the UK, clearly is not ideal for these kinds of cases. Around 6,000 to 7,000 people are referred to it every year and only a few hundred are selected to go on a deradicalisation programme called Channel. This can't be a catch-all for anyone intent on mass murder. The number of people referred to Prevent with "conflicted" or no ideology has been growing and now makes up 36% of all referrals. Rudakubana fell into that category in the three times he was referred. The first came after he did online searches around mass shootings, the second because of posts he made on Instagram about Libya's Colonel Gaddafi, and the third when he was found to be researching the London Bridge attacks. In each case, a judgement was made that he did not require intervention. Read more from Sky News:Former social worker warns over 'holes in the system' 'Individuals pose a serious concern' Dame Sara Khan, the former counter-extremism czar, told Sky News: "There is no effective system in place to deal with such individuals and they will continue to pose a serious concern." It's hard to quantify the number of success stories from Prevent because, by definition, they lead to nothing happening. But Rudakubana is the fourth person known to the programme, who has gone on to commit an act that many would call terrorism. The others include Reading knife killer Khairi Saadallah, Parsons Green bomber Ahmed Hassan, and the man who murdered MP Sir David Amess. Ali Harbi Ali managed to convince people at Prevent that he was reformed, when, actually, he was becoming ever more devoted to Islamic State ideology, ever more obsessed with murdering a politician. His ideology and choice of a political target puts Ali Harbi Ali firmly in the terrorist bracket. But is it worth trying to glean an understanding of Rudakubana's motives from his choice of victims? After all, he is the second mass killer to target children enjoying pop music from a female artist. Like the Manchester bombing at Ariana Grande's concert, his was an attack on innocence. Perhaps the best explanation for this was from the woman taking the dance class, Leanne Lucus. She told Liverpool Crown Court: "He targeted us because we were women and girls - because we were vulnerable, easy prey." Add to this the Islamic State terror threat to a Taylor Swift concert in Austria last summer, it seems angry young men; be they Islamic terrorists, Incels, or misfit loners, often have a misogynistic streak, taking out their rage on women and girls. It's clear a new strategy is needed, and as Metropolitan Police Commissioner Mark Rowley told LBC, they can never stop every violent man. He added: "We need to be as good as possible at it and there are too many, young men, online, obsessing about this violent material. Some of that is how we intervene with individuals, some of that's about the rules for online material and what people can digest and watch." MI5 says the internet is becoming ever more central to terrorist activities - surely that is the frontline of this battle, and one that seems to be getting further out of control with tech bosses choosing not to monitor and regulate content. With easy access to whatever he wanted to watch, Rudakubana was able to curate and indulge his warped fantasy in his bedroom, until he was ready to inflict it on the softest of targets. Does that make him a terrorist or just a monster? A young girl who he attacked but miraculously survived, perhaps found the best word: "Coward."
Sky News
28-01-2025
- Politics
- Sky News
'Pick-n-mix' ideologies: Why violent motivations are becoming harder to define
"Loners and misfits and young men in their bedrooms accessing all sorts of material online" - are these the "new threat" to our security? That's how Sir Keir Starmer put it as he told us last week that "terrorism has changed". The government says it has no plans to change the definition of extremism. So, then what does need redefining? Or does the "new threat" fall into some other category that perhaps in the US they would call "school-shooter"? Southport killer Axel Rudakubana is indeed a misfit, an aberration, but even the most clearly defined terrorists often are. Sometimes they have mental health problems. Often there's a criminal background and a pattern of escalating violence in their lives. In 2017, Khalid Masood killed four people and injured 50 when he drove a car down the pavement of Westminster Bridge, before fatally stabbing a police officer who was protecting parliament. Masood was a known extremist and Islamic State claimed responsibility for his actions, but research by criminologists at Birmingham City University found Masood's history of violence was a means to assert his "manliness" and regain power that may have been lacking elsewhere in his life. He also had a previous knife crime conviction, often got into fights and researchers say that "there is evidence that within prison he wanted to kill someone". No one is quite sure how Masood was radicalised, probably in jail, but perhaps he was just looking for a reason to justify his desire to kill - and extremism provided it. There is an argument that in many cases ideology is a mask, or at least secondary in significance to a person's violent nature. Our definition of terrorism comes from the Terrorism Act of 2000 and is the use of threat of violence designed to influence government or intimidate the public for the purpose of a political, religious, racial or ideological cause. The Incel movement New and weird forms of ideology can potentially form a plank for terrorism. The Incel (involuntary celibate) movement is one, and it definitely falls into the "misfit" category. This sub-culture is focused on members's feeling that they are being denied their right to intimate relationships. A deadly attack in a Toronto massage parlour in 2020 by an Incel-inspired man was described as an act of terrorism by a judge in Canada. Research by Swansea University for the Commission for Counter Extremism said this phenomenon was more aligned to the need for mental health support rather than counter-terrorism interventions, and that is partly where debate lies now with Rudakubana. He did get mental health support after it was determined he had an autism spectrum disorder, but he stopped engaging with it two years ago. The well-publicised deficiency in our mental health services needs as much attention here as any alleged failure in the anti-terrorism Prevent system. 'More volatile would-be terrorists' In October 2024, the head of MI5 Ken McCallum made the point that it was becoming harder to determine whether an act of violence was ideologically motivated or driven by another factor like mental health. He said: "We're encountering more volatile would-be terrorists with only a tenuous grasp of the ideologies they profess to follow. People viewing both extreme right-wing and Islamist extremist instructional material, along with other bits of online hatred, conspiracy theories and disinformation." Mr McCallum described a "dizzying range" of beliefs, "pick-n-mix" ideologies, and a "crowd-sourced model" where people pull on hatred and misinformation from a multitude of mostly online sources. He said: "Today, an attacker may have no connections to other terrorists. They might not be on our records. And there's often no claim of responsibility." 160,000 documents seized in Rudakubana probe Rudakubana again fits into the 'pic-n-mix' classification. He had a copy of Military Studies in the Jihad Against the Tyrants: The al Qaeda Training Manual, but he also had documents about Nazi Germany and the Rwandan genocide. 3:19 From 160,000 documents seized and examined, it was concluded he was simply obsessed with extreme violence, not a political or religious ideology. You could say violence was his ideology. In October 2017, when teenagers Thomas Wyllie and Alex Bolland were arrested for plotting to massacre fellow pupils at their school in Northallerton, their planned actions too did not conform to an ideology. The seeming act of terrorism committed by Emad al Swealmeen in November 2021, when he blew himself up in the back of a taxi outside Liverpool Women's Hospital, was eventually found to be motivated by a mix of anger over his failed asylum application and poor mental health. Prevent and its deradicalisation programme The Prevent programme, set up to stop the spread of terrorism in the UK, clearly is not ideal for these kinds of cases. Around 6,000 to 7,000 people are referred to it every year and only a few hundred are selected to go on a deradicalisation programme called Channel. This can't be a catch-all for anyone intent on mass murder. The number of people referred to Prevent with "conflicted" or no ideology has been growing and now makes up 36% of all referrals. 1:38 Rudakubana fell into that category in the three times he was referred. The first came after he did online searches around mass shootings, the second because of posts he made on Instagram about Libya's Colonel Gaddafi, and the third when he was found to be researching the London Bridge attacks. In each case, a judgement was made that he did not require intervention. 'Individuals pose a serious concern' Dame Sara Khan, the former counter-extremism czar, told Sky News: "There is no effective system in place to deal with such individuals and they will continue to pose a serious concern." It's hard to quantify the number of success stories from Prevent because, by definition, they lead to nothing happening. But Rudakubana is the fourth person known to the programme, who has gone on to commit an act that many would call terrorism. The others include Reading knife killer Khairi Saadallah, Parsons Green bomber Ahmed Hassan, and the man who murdered MP Sir David Amess. Ali Harbi Ali managed to convince people at Prevent that he was reformed, when, actually, he was becoming ever more devoted to Islamic State ideology, ever more obsessed with murdering a politician. His ideology and choice of a political target puts Ali Harbi Ali firmly in the terrorist bracket. But is it worth trying to glean an understanding of Rudakubana's motives from his choice of victims? After all, he is the second mass killer to target children enjoying pop music from a female artist. Like the Manchester bombing at Ariana Grande's concert, his was an attack on innocence. Perhaps the best explanation for this was from the woman taking the dance class, Leanne Lucus. She told Liverpool Crown Court: "He targeted us because we were women and girls - because we were vulnerable, easy prey." Add to this the Islamic State terror threat to a Taylor Swift concert in Austria last summer, it seems angry young men; be they Islamic terrorists, Incels, or misfit loners, often have a misogynistic streak, taking out their rage on women and girls. It's clear a new strategy is needed, and as Metropolitan Police Commissioner Mark Rowley told LBC, they can never stop every violent man. He added: "We need to be as good as possible at it and there are too many, young men, online, obsessing about this violent material. Some of that is how we intervene with individuals, some of that's about the rules for online material and what people can digest and watch." MI5 says the internet is becoming ever more central to terrorist activities - surely that is the frontline of this battle, and one that seems to be getting further out of control with tech bosses choosing not to monitor and regulate content. With easy access to whatever he wanted to watch, Rudakubana was able to curate and indulge his warped fantasy in his bedroom, until he was ready to inflict it on the softest of targets. Does that make him a terrorist or just a monster? A young girl who he attacked but miraculously survived, perhaps found the best word: "Coward."
