Experts Warn About Rising Extremism In Gaming

AFSData Partner CEP - “Far-right extremists are a growing presence in gaming, researchers have found, while the industry’s hidden metrics, lackluster content moderation and head-in-the-sand attitudes get in the way of assessing and combatting the problem. Why it matters: Gaming and game-adjacent platforms have grown into some of the largest entertainment industries in the world, leading to massive opportunities for recruitment and organizing by extremist groups.

A December 2021 report from the Extremism and Gaming Research Network (EGRN) found that innovative efforts to prevent and counter violent extremism in gaming spaces are “nearly undetectable.” State of play: Extremism in games is “a growing threat,” Alex Newhouse, the deputy director at the Center on Terrorism, Extremism, and Counterterrorism, said in a Games Developers Conference talk last month. “Games are becoming increasingly social ... those social hooks provide the structures and the infrastructure for extremists to organize, mobilize and spread their hateful and extreme ideologies,” Newhouse said. What's happening: In games stretching from military shooters like Call of Duty to open creative environments like Roblox, extremist groups spread abusive messages and foster relationships.” (ref: Axios)

White Supremacism Biggest Source Of Illegal Content Online - DIA Report
“White identity-motivated extremism continues to be the leading driver of online content investigated and shut down by Internal Affairs. The Department of Internal Affairs (DIA) today released its first annual report into online violent extremism content, covering 2021. The report is in part a result of the Christchurch Call - efforts by governments to eliminate such content online led by New Zealand and France after the March 15 attacks on Christchurch mosques in 2019 - and aims to produce a yearly snapshot of the volume of content investigated and removed. It shows white identity-motivated extremist ideology accounts for the largest portion of investigated content by far. Nearly three years after the mosques terror attack, the massacre livestream continued to be shared and promoted, particularly by white-identity motivated extremists, it found.

The DIA said it highlighted the huge impact the attacks continued to have on New Zealand's online violent extremist environment. Twitter was the biggest source of content referred to the department, and the biggest source of content deemed illegal which it then sought to have removed. However Twitter did act on all cases of content flagged for removal by the DIA.” (ref: NZ Herald)

Content provided by CEP, AFSData Research & Analysis official media partner.
To see the full report by CEP click the link below.