Listen to Australian and world news and follow trending topics with SBS News Podcasts.
TRANSCRIPT
Ever since the popularisation of violent, realistic video games, critics have warned that they promote violence and aggression among players.
While countless scientific studies have found little evidence to back these theories, online gaming platforms are now becoming breeding grounds for extremist radicalisation.
Helen Young is an associate professor at Deakin University researching video games and extremist ideologies.
Dr Young says while video games, even violent ones, are not themselves radicalising, the technology they operate on are effective tools for radicalisation.
“Gaming as a kind of ecosystem that's made up of digital platforms, of games themselves, and of gamers and different groups of gamers, different kinds of gamers, has been really effectively used by violent extremists. Partly because the kind of digital infrastructure, whether that's social media platforms like Discord or Twitch, whether that's in-game communication, is really hard to regulate. And so that's one set of challenges, and that's a kind of technological set of challenges. Those kind of communication technologies are designed to be hard to control, hard to regulate, and so extremists have exploited that.”
In the early to mid-2010s, the popularity of online gaming platforms like Roblox, Fortnite and Minecraft grew immensely.
Now boasting tens of millions of daily users each, these open-world games allow players the freedom to create and modify gameplay as they like.
After creating their own strategy, environment and even attire, players can invite friends and peers to the games and communicate through chat rooms.
Inside these chat rooms and modified games, young people are being increasingly targeted by terrorist recruitment efforts.
Dr Young says that unlike social media, communicating with anonymous strangers is very common on these platforms.
“Platforms like Roblox and a whole slew of other gaming platforms really give young people access to the world in ways, at a scale, that they didn't have before. And they're spaces where interacting with people that you don't know, people who you may never know in real life, is really kind of normal. And so, in that sense, they've changed what young people might encounter, and they've provided a conduit for extremists to engage with young people, again, on a scale that was previously really hard to reach.”
The United Nations says the rate at which terrorist organisations recruit people online is outpacing the rate at which governments can respond.
In Europe and North America, children account for 42 per cent of all terror-related investigations, which is a threefold increase from 2021.
Since new counterterrorism legislation came into effect in Australia in 2024, 31 people have been charged under the new offences.
Almost two thirds of those charges were minors.
With Australia's terrorism threat level raised to 'probable', ASIO Director Mike Burgess says security agencies are tackling new and emerging threats.
“I continue to be extremely concerned by the number of young people, particularly young men, who are being radicalized online and mobilizing to violence relatively quickly with little to no warning. T he extremists we look at, almost by definition, are security conscious and suspicious of outsiders. People who self radicalise online often show few, if any, real world indicators they are mobilizing to violence.”
With concerns about counterterrorism funding raised in the Royal Commission on Antisemitism and Social Cohesion interim report, the government says online gaming and chatrooms are a growing risk.
To address this, the government has announced it will invest $74 million into the establishment of a new Counter Terrorism Online Centre.
Through the centre, intelligence analysts and specialist investigators will conduct covert online engagement, with the aim of intervening and disrupting online terror recruitment and radicalisation networks.
Mike Burgess says if ASIO is not online and embedded in these platforms, it cannot intervene.
“The challenge posed by online radicalization and encryption is significant and continues to grow, and this investment will improve our ability to identify and monitor Sunni violent extremists, nationalist and racist violent extremists, anarchist and revolutionary violent extremists and any other entities that advocate politically motivated violence, and this will make a significant contribution to our collective capabilities to protect Australia and Australians.”
Research shows that in recent years, online youth radicalisation often exploits adolescent social dynamics and vulnerabilities.
Unlike traditional recruitment methods, radicalisation on gaming platforms is increasingly inconsistent in its ideological basis.
Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke says intelligence organisations have identified four new characteristics that were not traditionally looked for in counterterrorism assessments.
“Those four features were increasingly we had people being radicalized online, being radicalized fast, having mixed ideology and not necessarily the traditional ideologies that might be attached to terrorism. And finally, people being young. Those four characteristics effectively meant that radicalisation, which we might have always associated with the meeting room, was now also happening in the chat room.”
The Centre, to be jointly led by ASIO and the Australian Federal Police, will work to enhance the government response and enable intervention earlier.
AFP Commissioner Krissy Barrett says that as artificial intelligence advances the efforts of online recruiters, law enforcement agencies will use the same technologies to counter them.
“Too many of our young and vulnerable are at the crossroads to crime, and too many are already desensitized to violence given what they have been viewing or creating online. We need to use a combination of human intelligence and artificial intelligence to disrupt and detect the extremist recruiters and inciters, while protecting and diverting those at risk.”
While welcoming of the security announcement, Dr Young says to prevent radicalisation online, efforts must be made beyond security and government measures.
Pointing to a program called Game Changers, which amplifies gamer-led and youth-led initiatives to address the risks of online extremism, Dr Young says young people must be given the opportunity to establish their own values and ideas.
“The kinds of action that are really needed, and that we know from the research are really needed to prevent people becoming radicalized in the first place, don't happen in the security space. And so there's a real need for other kinds of initiatives, not necessarily and probably not coming directly from government. So from communities, from civil society organizations, to really be supporting youth, and saying, "Okay, well, what can we do to support youth to have voices in their own future, to work out what their values are in safe spaces, to work through their own identities, the ways that they want to be in the world, and to support them to make choices and actions in their own communities.”
