Far-right extremists using games platforms to radicalise teenagers, report warns
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Far-right extremists are using livestream gaming platforms to target and radicalise teenage players, a report has warned.
The new research, published in the journal Frontiers in Psychology, reveals how a range of extremist groups and individuals use platforms that allow users to chat and livestream while playing video games to recruit and radicalise vulnerable users, mainly young males.
UK crime and counter-terror agencies have urged parents to be especially alert to online offenders targeting youngsters during the summer holidays.
In an unprecedented move, last week Counter Terrorism Policing, MI5 and the National Crime Agency issued a joint warning to parents and carers that online offenders “will exploit the school holidays to engage in criminal acts with young people when they know less support is readily available”.
Dr William Allchorn, a senior research fellow at Anglia Ruskin University’s international policing and public protection research institute, who carried out the study with his colleague Dr Elisa Orofino, said “gaming-adjacent” platforms were being used as “digital playgrounds” for extremist activity.
Allchorn found teenage players were being deliberately “funnelled” by extremists from mainstream social media platforms to these sites, where “the nature and quantity of the content makes these platforms very hard to police”.
The most common ideology being pushed by extremist users was far right, with content celebrating extreme violence and school shootings also shared.
On Tuesday, Felix Winter, who threatened to carry out a mass shooting at his Edinburgh school, was jailed for six years after the court heard the 18-year-old had been “radicalised” online, spending more than 1,000 hours in contact with a pro-Nazi Discord group.
Content retrieved from: https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2025/jul/31/far-right-extremists-games-platforms-radicalise-teenagers-report.
