In America, far-right extremism...
...is now considered a greater domestic threat...
...than Islamist terrorism
And he start shooting, like everyone
And across the world...
...a growing number of “lone actors”...
...with no traditional links to terrorist organisations...
...are prepared to attack...
...and kill for their beliefs
I started to build this hateful mindset of just going out there and...
...killing people
What’s causing this spread of extremist ideology?
Like a virus...
...right-wing extremism has mutated in unpredictable ways
We have seen some of the extremist channels...
...explode in terms of their membership
And what can be done to stop hateful words...
...from becoming deadly actions?
When the Christchurch attacker walked into the Al Noor Mosque...
... in March 2019
…he wasn’t just carrying firearms
He was also equipped with far-right extremism’s latest weapon...
...a helmet cam...
...connected to a Facebook live-stream
Nearly 200 watched his murderous attack live...
...with many quickly replicating and sharing the footage...
...within hours it had gone viral
Police are investigating reports that...
...an attacker live-streamed their actions
The terrorist of Christchurch really had...
...a very strategic campaign in mind
Unfortunately, his methods were really effective because...
...it was recycled in these online far-right communities...
...as propaganda materials to recruit from young audiences...
...from gaming audiences
Because they made video-game versions of it...
...they made glorifying memes and visuals...
...from his materials that he had posted online
And that was then used to inspire future attacks
The Christchurch attack...
...revealed just how much the far right has evolved...
...since the days of the Ku Klux Klan
Rather than having formal ties to a specific localised group or party...
...the Christchurch attacker was part of a loose global community…
…of online extremists
And therefore considered a lone actor
One of the most difficult types of terrorist...
...for security services to detect
When you have...
...a kid who knows how to use a VPN...
...to disguise their internet connection...
...sitting in front of their computer...
...these individuals self-radicalise...
...get themselves some kind of a weapon and...
…it’s just really hard to trace
You know it’s one actor with no obvious connection...
...to any particular group you’re monitoring
A report by the New Zealand Royal Commission...
...found the Christchurch attacker…
…was radicalised by content on YouTube...
...and other online platforms
But it’s not just social-media channels...
...that provide a platform for far-right extremists
They’ve also used online gaming forums...
...to promote transnational racial ideas...
...like the Great Replacement...
...a conspiracy theory that states that whites are being supplanted...
...by non-white populations
Many right-wing extremists...
...feel that they’re fighting what is essentially a defensive war...
...in which they are the victims
And they are...
...fighting against...
...people who would replace them with...
...a grand multicultural race or some other dominant race
A recent study from Cybersecurity for Democracy...
...found that far-right accounts are more successful...
...than other kinds of accounts at getting likes, shares...
...and other forms of user engagement
What attracts us most or what captivates our attention...
...has still not changed from a few hundred years ago...
...when we liked to watch bloody fights between gladiators or...
...witches being hung
We like radical and bloody content
We like incredible content
We like conspiracy theories
And that means that radical groups have a much easier time...
...to spread their messages online than moderate groups
Social-media algorithms have so far worked in the favour...
...of far-right extremists...
...keen to share their ideology
Since the early days of the internet...
...far-right extremists have been responsible...
...for around 700 terrorist attacks worldwide
And from 2015 to 2019...
...the number of far-right attacks has grown to over 60 every year
And the number of younger extremists has been growing
In Britain alone...
...numbers of 15-to 20-year-olds...
...referred to the government’s counter-terrorism programme...
...Prevent, over suspected far-right involvement...
...have soared to well over 400 every year since 2017
The advent of digital culture has given right-wing extremists...
...a really unparalleled tool for recruitment
They can now reach directly...
...into the homes of...
...really young kids and...
...hook them with a form of propaganda that is very much...
...influenced by broader digital culture
Some groups have even been led by teenagers...
...such as the 13-year-old Estonian boy...
...nicknamed “Commander”...
...who was one of the heads of the neo-Nazi Feuerkrieg Division
And in February this year...
...a British 16-year-old boy...
...was sentenced for terrorism offences...
...having led an online neo-Nazi group
During the pandemic...
...online far-right internet activity boomed
Between March and April of 2020...
...membership of sites that discuss the Boogaloo, a term used by extremists...
...to describe an impending civil war...
...doubled to over 72,000
As conspiracy theories spread...
...the UN warned that right-wing extremists...
...were using covid-19 related disinformation...
...to radicalise, fundraise and inspire attacks
We have seen some of the extremist channels explode...
...in terms of the membership...
...because people have been more fearful...
...also more lonely, often sitting at home...
...and spending their late evenings or weekends...
...in some of the communities where extremist groups recruit from
Freedom, freedom, freedom
Before the pandemic...
...those on the fringes of the mainstream right...
...were fairly distinct from conspiracy theorists...
...and members of the far-right
But worryingly, disaffection with governments...
...over their handling of covid-19...
...has opened up some common ground
The pandemic has thrown together...
...both online and in these anti-lockdown protests...
...groups that would maybe not...
...have previously been exposed to one another
And the far-right extremists are able to use...
...both the conspiracy theories...
...and the disaffection of these...
...more sort of politically mainstream individuals...
...as a recruitment tool, again collapsing the difference between...
...what they believe and what the other groups believe
Tech companies have so far been slow to acknowledge their role...
...in providing a platform for far-right extremists
Within the past few months...
...Facebook, Twitter and others...
...have started to restrict some groups...
...but deplatforming...
...is not without its problems
You might decrease the reach that extremists have...
...but that also means that they move to the smaller fringe platforms...
...where they can share even more radical and violent content...
...because they’re not being monitored there
One of the biggest challenges for the tech firms...
...and also the security forces is...
...the pace at which far-right extremists move across the internet
They’re really good at circumventing new policies...
...that platforms introduce
They still manage to build up their own safe havens
Another tech solution being developed...
...is automatic software...
...that directs those searching for extremist content...
...towards alternative narratives
While these tools could derail some paths to radicalisation...
...state-level solutions...
...co-ordinated between governments...
...may be needed to bring about effective change
If there was something like a global...
...approach to really tackling far-right extremism...
...that would be really helpful because online...
...borders don’t really matter...
...and if one government imposes...
...a restriction on far-right-extremist content...
...and another one doesn’t...
...that means that extremists still can go online...
...and basically spread the ideologies in whatever country they want
America has lagged behind other nations in combatting the threat...
...of far-right extremism
Unlike Germany or Britain...
...America has no legal mechanism...
...to forbid domestic far-right-extremist groups...
...and individuals cannot be prosecuted for being part of them
Despite these challenges...
...there are laws that could be used to target...
...potential domestic terrorists
Yet some believe...
...there has been a lack of political will to enforce them
It’s not always the case...
...that a particular government in power will have...
…preventing far-right extremism...
...as the top of their list of priorities
Freedom-of-speech laws in America...
...mean that unlike in many other countries...
...even hate speech is protected
And this leniency has had global repercussions
The US really matters here because...
...a lot of tech firms that host far-right-extremist content...
...are based in the US
So they determine basically...
...what is being taken offline globally
Left to self-regulate...
...many tech companies have resisted...
...fully enforcing even their own rules...
...to restrict extremist content
But there are some promising signs
Facebook’s removal of hate speech...
...has risen eightfold...
...in just the past two years
And it recently announced it was stopping algorithms...
...recommending political groups to users
However, even in the best-case scenario...
...the internet will continue to be an effective tool...
...in radicalising and recruiting more people worldwide
Every attack feeds the beast
This culture that they have of mythologising...
...those who perpetrated these atrocities...
...merely inspires more and...
...unless something is done to...
...stem the flow of people...
...disaffected and susceptible to recruitment...
...more will be radicalised and we’ll see more attacks
When President Biden took office in January...
...he claimed that tackling far-right extremism was a priority
A rise of white supremacy...
...domestic terrorism...
...that we must confront and we will defeat
But details so far have been lacking
In March...
...a joint intelligence paper...
...said that racially motivated extremism was...
...the biggest threat facing America
But how the administration intends to tackle the problem remains...
...unclear at this point
Experts agree...
...especially in light of hardships brought about by the pandemic...
...there’s no time to lose
I do think it’s hugely important that policymakers now look at...
...the population segments that are...
...the hardest hit by the crisis...
…in order to prevent them from being lured...
...into extremist networks...
...so that we can provide them with alternative solutions...
...before the extremists do
I’m Andrew Knox…
…a news editor for The Economist
To read more of our coverage, click the link
Thanks very much for watching