Far Right Uses Video Games to Recruit Teens.

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Fnord
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15 Feb 2021, 3:35 pm

How far right uses video games and tech to lure and radicalise teenage recruits. -- This Guardian Article

Quote:
Among the organisations monitoring the radicalisation of teenagers is the Home Office’s Commission for Countering Extremism. Sara Khan, the government’s lead commissioner for countering extremism, confirmed to the Observer that the far right was "actively and deliberately radicalising the UK’s children".  Khan, who will publish a report this month chronicling myriad failures in the government’s counter-extremism strategy, said they had identified considerable extremist content, much on unregulated platforms and propelled by algorithms that could quickly draw young minds like John’s deeper into violent extremism.

"Thousands of videos, memes, GIFs and other content promote Islamist beheading videos, neo-Nazi material advocating for 'Jews to be gassed', to videos celebrating the actions of terrorists such as Thomas Mair [the far-right supporter who murdered MP Jo Cox]," said Khan.

Right, so while this is a "Guardian" article, the information behind it seems sound.  The "Thousands of videos, memes, GIFs and other content" mentioned in the article do exist, and teens do seem to cite them as factors in their radicalisation, so what is the U.K. going to do about it all?


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madbutnotmad
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15 Feb 2021, 3:50 pm

I believe they have been doing things like that for decades.
The island that i live on is where some of the leaders of one of the far right organization combat 18 came from.
I remember as a kid, these people used to run a club in the basement of one of the local pubs (then called the Esplanade pub, which is now called the "S" bar).
where they used to try and recruit kids at secondary school age (11 - 16 years old)

get them to come along to their meetings., where the leaders of the group would stand up and give long
racist speeches in order to attempt to convert or brainwash their audience with lower IQs or those who
are easily impressionable

I remember when I was about 13, i went along to one meeting after being invited by a mate, without having a clue as to what it was all about. After the first meeting, I was out. was not into it.

But the meetings went on and i wasn't wise enough at the time to do anything about it.



shlaifu
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15 Feb 2021, 9:10 pm

about a third of 00's and 2010's videogame output was about being an American soldier shooting brown people in urban, middle eastern settings, making a game out of deciding whether or not to kill civilians....

I wonder what games the rightwingers are using to lure in the kids.


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Fnord
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16 Feb 2021, 9:56 am

shlaifu wrote:
about a third of 00's and 2010's videogame output was about being an American soldier shooting brown people in urban, middle eastern settings, making a game out of deciding whether or not to kill civilians...
That's why I stopped playing FPS video games and went back to TTRPGs.


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The_Face_of_Boo
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16 Feb 2021, 10:09 am

shlaifu wrote:
about a third of 00's and 2010's videogame output was about being an American soldier shooting brown people in urban, middle eastern settings, making a game out of deciding whether or not to kill civilians....

I wonder what games the rightwingers are using to lure in the kids.


I miss Doom.



Pepe
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16 Feb 2021, 12:08 pm

madbutnotmad wrote:
I believe they have been doing things like that for decades.
The island that i live on is where some of the leaders of one of the far right organization combat 18 came from.
I remember as a kid, these people used to run a club in the basement of one of the local pubs (then called the Esplanade pub, which is now called the "S" bar).
where they used to try and recruit kids at secondary school age (11 - 16 years old)

get them to come along to their meetings., where the leaders of the group would stand up and give long
racist speeches in order to attempt to convert or brainwash their audience with lower IQs or those who
are easily impressionable


I remember when I was about 13, i went along to one meeting after being invited by a mate, without having a clue as to what it was all about. After the first meeting, I was out. was not into it.

But the meetings went on and i wasn't wise enough at the time to do anything about it.


It sounds like something ISIS would do.
I have never researched this, btw.



Pepe
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16 Feb 2021, 12:13 pm

The_Face_of_Boo wrote:
shlaifu wrote:
about a third of 00's and 2010's videogame output was about being an American soldier shooting brown people in urban, middle eastern settings, making a game out of deciding whether or not to kill civilians....

I wonder what games the rightwingers are using to lure in the kids.


I miss Doom.


I never got into it.
I was a big fan of The 'Battlefield' franchises, but in the end, all the cheating drove me away.

I never had the 'killer instinct' that a lot of male kids have, and preferred to be in a supporting position/role rather than look for battlefield glory.
I would make a lousy terrorist. :mrgreen:



NaturalEntity
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16 Feb 2021, 1:33 pm

That would make sense. I've never played the kinds of games they would use to radicalise me though, so I think I'm OK. Also, fiction isn't reality if that's what they're trying to put forward with that.


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slam_thunderhide
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17 Feb 2021, 1:31 pm

Fnord wrote:
How far right uses video games and tech to lure and radicalise teenage recruits. -- This Guardian Article
Quote:
Among the organisations monitoring the radicalisation of teenagers is the Home Office’s Commission for Countering Extremism. Sara Khan, the government’s lead commissioner for countering extremism, confirmed to the Observer that the far right was "actively and deliberately radicalising the UK’s children".  Khan, who will publish a report this month chronicling myriad failures in the government’s counter-extremism strategy, said they had identified considerable extremist content, much on unregulated platforms and propelled by algorithms that could quickly draw young minds like John’s deeper into violent extremism.

"Thousands of videos, memes, GIFs and other content promote Islamist beheading videos, neo-Nazi material advocating for 'Jews to be gassed', to videos celebrating the actions of terrorists such as Thomas Mair [the far-right supporter who murdered MP Jo Cox]," said Khan.

Right, so while this is a "Guardian" article, the information behind it seems sound.  The "Thousands of videos, memes, GIFs and other content" mentioned in the article do exist, and teens do seem to cite them as factors in their radicalisation, so what is the U.K. going to do about it all?


So after delcaring your hesitancy about using The Guardian as a source, you declare that the claim still seems sound. But with my hat on marked “critical thinking, science, logic, crticial thinking, facts, critical thinking and science” I can only conclude that we must ignore the opening claim in this thread until proper data, statistics and peer reviewed studies are presented.

Issue with the opening claim are as follows,

Who are the teens who cite the "thousands of videos, memes, GIFs and other content as factors in their radicalization? The article only provides anecdotal evidence of a teen called “John”. Is there evidence that there are actually enough of these teens to indicate a trend? Are there any data, statistics and peer reviewed studies on this?

To what extent are teens who cite the "thousands of videos, memes, GIFs and other content” they have encountered through playing video games as factors in their radicalization” telling the truth? How many of them are instead making excuses for obtaining certain material that they actively sought out because they already agreed with those materials? And how many of them never really believed in any of the material and were just messing around? Do we have any data, statistics and peer reviewed studies on their internet histories and their true attitudes before and after “radicalization”?

Undefined term: “far right”. Do we have any unbiased studies on the true opinions of the majority of UK citizens on a wide range of policy issues that would allow us to determine which views are “far right” along with studies by political scientists that can tell us how many “far right” policy positions a person must support before they can themselves be called “far right”, and can these studies be cross-referenced against the videos and memes in question and against the people who are circulating them? Is there any data on how much “far right” material is actually being circulated by the security services as part of entrapment activities?

Undefined term: “recruit”. Presuming we have the data to accurately identify and label far right material and far right people spreading it, do we have any data, statistics and peer reviewed studies on the extent to which those people are acting as representatives of political organizations or acting alone, and if acting alone, the extent to which they are acting as political activists as opposed to just making conversation or trolling?