Radicalization of children is growing in Europe due to online content
Kyiv • UNN
The threat of radicalization of children is growing in Europe due to online content. Extremists use porn, scenes of violence and social networks to influence teenagers, which leads to attempted terrorist attacks.
A new threat is growing in Europe: extremists are increasingly targeting children, using porn and scenes of violence as an entry point into the world of radicalization.
This is reported by AP News, writes UNN.
Details
As Associated Press News writes, radicalization now often takes place online — through videos, chats and social media algorithms that promote the spread of prohibited content. More and more minors are falling under the influence of extremists and starting to prepare attacks — some of them come to the attention of the police only after attempting to commit an attack.
Olivier Christen, France's national anti-terrorism prosecutor, who is handling the country's most serious terrorist investigations, has firsthand experience of the growing threat. His unit filed preliminary terrorism-related charges against only two minors in 2022. That number jumped to 15 in 2023 and again last year to 19.
Some of them are "really very, very young, around 15 years old, which was almost unheard of two years ago,"
According to him, this demonstrates the high effectiveness of propaganda spread by terrorist organizations, which are quite successful in targeting this age group.
The so-called "Five Eyes" intelligence-sharing network, which usually avoids public attention and brings together the security services of the United States, Great Britain, Canada, Australia and New Zealand, is so concerned that in December it took the unusual step of publicly calling for collective action, stating:
Radically настроєні неповнолітні можуть становити таку ж реальну терористичну загрозу, як і дорослі
In Germany, a task force of the Ministry of the Interior, created after the deadly mass stabbing last year, focused on teenagers' social media, seeking to counter their growing role in radicalization.
In France, the DGSI domestic security agency reports that 70% of suspects arrested for involvement in alleged terrorist plots are under the age of 21.
In Austria, security services say a 19-year-old suspect arrested in August, along with an 18-year-old and a 17-year-old, for allegedly plotting to kill concertgoers Taylor Swift, inspired by ISIS, was radicalized online.
The VSSE intelligence agency in Belgium reports that almost a third of suspects arrested there for preparing terrorist attacks in 2022-2024 were minors - the youngest was only 13 years old.
Investigators note that the path to extremism often begins with viewing banned pornography or bloody scenes. Next — videos of torture, beheadings, and learning how to make explosives. Children consume all this in encrypted chats, where the police cannot always react in time.
Unlike previous generations, who were easier for police to track and monitor because they interacted in the real world, their successors often interact only in the digital space, including in encrypted chats, to hide their identity and activities.
They live in their phones, tablets, computers, communicating with people they don't know. .. Some start imagining who they will attack, how they will do it, conducting real intelligence, hunting for weapons, studying manuals on making explosives
For some children, the process starts with violent pornography or a fascination with bloody images.
Often they are active consumers of everything that is broadcast on the Internet, and especially what is prohibited
"This is a kind of chain reaction that leads them to the ultra-violence spread by jihadist movements."
