Last week the drama miniseries Adolescence was released on Netflix, starring Stephen Graham, Ashley Walters and 15 year old Owen Cooper. The series has received widespread acclaim, scoring 98% on Rotten Tomatoes and sparking discussions on social media. Adolescence focuses on a 13 year old boy who, after being radicalised online, murders a girl from his school. Its unflinching portrayal of online extremism has ignited debate on protecting children, particularly boys, from being exposed to extremist content, especially misogynistic content which often slips through safety filters.
Concerns about online radicalisation have been growing for years, intensified by high-profile cases like the murder of Brianna Ghey in 2023 and the Southport attacks last July. Lawmakers have desperately tried to regulate these harms with legislation like the Online Safety Act and new measures to combat and address the issues of online radicalisation in the Data Use and Access and Crime and Policing Bills which are currently passing through Parliament. Beyond that, Keir Starmer has backed a campaign to show Adolescence in schools and the government has suggested they will reconsider plans to ban phones from classrooms. Former England football manager Gareth Southgate has also joined the discussion, criticising toxic male influencers who tell young boys that they should desire power over women and discourage them from showing emotions.
While these initiatives are critical, the reality is that most radicalisation does not occur on social media exclusively and by focusing efforts on social media regulation, policymakers risk overlooking a major hub of extremist content: online gaming spaces.
Earlier this week RUSI held an event focused on their findings from a project titled Examining Socialization with a Nexus to Radicalization Across Gaming (-Adjacent) Platforms Through a Gender Lens. The project sought to document how people in gaming spaces and those who identify as gamers are exposed to extremist content and then use this information to propose what they call positive gaming interventions. In the course of this research they found that ‘a third of respondents reported exposure to images, videos or symbols promoting extremism, with nearly 40% witnessing endorsements of violence against particular social groups’. Concerningly they also found that ‘24.9% encountered content suggesting they join extremist groups, with younger individuals more frequently targeted’. These figures are alarming and indicative of a concerted effort by extremist groups to utilise gaming spaces to spread their messages.
Misogyny is a key driver of this radicalisation. The report notes nearly half of all women in the gaming space have experienced gender-based harassment. This pervasive nature of misogyny in gaming spaces has led to gamers becoming desensitised to these sentiments which has lowered resilience against broader extremist ideologies, many of which are rooted in misogyny.
Online gaming spaces have provided a platform for dangerous extremism to fester but they present unique challenges in attempting to address extremism. The gaming community is extremely insular and often very resistant to outside attempts to counterorganise against extremism. However, gamers are also very hesitant to push back against harmful language themselves, often fearing they will become ostracised if they do so. Beyond that, in many cases large numbers of gamers do not even know how to report harmful content when they do want to take action.
If the government is truly committed to their promise to halve VAWG in a decade, they must recognise online gaming as a critical front in the fight against radicalisation. Without action, these spaces will continue to serve as a fertile ground for extremism, beyond the reach of current policies focused solely on social media.
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