by Linda Schlegel

The concept of gamification is increasingly applied as a framework to understand extremist online subcultures and communications. Although a number of studies have been conducted, the theoretical and empirical basis to understand the role of gamification in extremist contexts remains weak. This article seeks to contribute to the development of a gamification of radicalization theory by exploring how Marczewski’s HEXAD, a user typology for gamified applications, may facilitate our understanding of individual variations in engagement with gamified extremist content. Five user types, named after their core motivational drivers for engagement, are discussed: Socializers, Competitors, Achievers, Meaning Seekers, and Disruptors. This typology may support future studies by providing a preliminary understanding of how different game elements may appeal to different users and increase their engagement with and susceptibility to extremist content in cyberspace.

Perspectives on Terrorism , August 2021, Vol. 15, No. 4 (August 2021), pp. 54-64 .

By Linda Schlegel

The livestreaming of attacks, the use of Call of Duty footage in propaganda videos, the modification of popular video games to support extremist worldviews, and the development of games and playful apps by extremist organizations have all contributed to an increasing focus on the so-called ‘gamification of terror’. Since the live-streamed attack in Christchurch and the realization that subsequent perpetrators in Pittsburgh, El Paso and Halle not only copied the mode and style of attack but were embedded in and sought to appeal to similar online communities, in which gamified language and references to gaming were part of the subcultural practice, journalists, academics, and practitioners have begun to analyze the role games and gamified applications may play in radicalization processes. Understandably, as the Christchurch shooting has taken place less than two years ago, the analysis into the potential role of gamification in radicalization processes has only just begun and much confusion persists on both terminology and the exact mechanisms by which gamification may influence extremist thought and action. The fact that gamification itself is a fairly new concept, which has only been seriously researched for around ten years, complicates matters further. A large part of this report is therefore dedicated to organizing the current state of knowledge and to provide readers with a baseline of knowledge on gamification in extremist contexts. After a discussion on gamification as such and how it may or may not be differentiated from other gaming appeals, an overview of the current evidence of gamified radicalization processes is provided. Then, research findings on the psychological mechanisms of gamification are applied to the issue of radicalization. Lastly, the report flashlights some preliminary possibilities of applying gamification to preventing and/or countering extremism (P/CVE). Readers must be aware that this final part of the report lacks robust empirical grounding and is not meant to be taken as evidence of what should or should not be done. Rather, it is meant as an invitation to explore and discuss the implications of gamification for P/CVE.

MODUS | Working Paper 1/2021. Germany: MODUS, 2021. 20p.

By Maggie Brady

In Teaching ‘Proper’ Drinking?, the author brings together three fields of scholarship: socio-historical studies of alcohol, Australian Indigenous policy history and social enterprise studies. The case studies in the book offer the first detailed surveys of efforts to teach responsible drinking practices to Aboriginal people by installing canteens in remote communities, and of the purchase of public hotels by Indigenous groups in attempts both to control sales of alcohol and to create social enterprises by redistributing profits for the community good. Ethnographies of the hotels are examined through the analytical lens of the Swedish ‘Gothenburg’ system of municipal hotel ownership.

The research reveals that the community governance of such social enterprises is not purely a matter of good administration or compliance with the relevant liquor legislation. Their administration is imbued with the additional challenges posed by political contestation, both within and beyond the communities concerned.

Canberra: ANU Press, 2017. 344p.

By Sirje Laurel Weldon

A must-read for scholars across a broad sweep of disciplines. Laurel Weldon weaves together skillfully the theoretical strands of gender equality policy, intersectionality, social movements, and representation in a multimethod/level comparative study that unequivocally places women's movements at the center of our understanding of democracy and social change."" ---Amy G. Mazur, Washington State University "Laurel Weldon's When Protest Makes Policy expands and enriches our understanding of representation by stressing social movements as a primary avenue for the representation of marginalized groups. With powerful theory backed by persuasive analysis, it is a must-read for anyone interested in democracy and the representation of marginalized groups." ---Pamela Paxton, University of Texas at Austin ""This is a bold and exciting book. There are many fine scholars who look at women's movements, political theorists who make claims about democracy, and policy analysts who do longitudinal treatments or cross-sectional evaluations of various policies. I know of no one, aside from Weldon, who is comfortable with all three of these roles."" ---David Meyer, University of California, Irvine What role do social movements play in a democracy? Political theorist S. Laurel Weldon demonstrates that social movements provide a hitherto unrecognized form of democratic representation, and thus offer a significant potential for deepening democracy and overcoming social conflict. Through a series of case studies of movements conducted by women, women of color, and workers in the United States and other member nations of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), Weldon examines processes of representation at the local, state, and national levels. She concludes that, for systematically disadvantaged groups, social movements can be as important---sometimes more important---for the effective articulation of a group perspective as political parties, interest groups, or the physical presence of group members in legislatures. When Protest Makes Policy contributes to the emerging scholarship on civil society as well as the traditional scholarship on representation. It will be of interest to anyone concerned with advancing social cohesion and deepening democracy and inclusion as well as those concerned with advancing equality for women, ethnic and racial minorities, the working class, and poor people.

Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2011. 244p.

By Carlo Montemayor

In this open access book, Carlos Montemayor illuminates the development of artificial intelligence (AI) by examining our drive to live a dignified life. He uses the notions of agency and attention to consider our pursuit of what is important. His method shows how the best way to guarantee value alignment between humans and potentially intelligent machines is through attention routines that satisfy similar needs. Setting out a theoretical framework for AI Montemayor acknowledges its legal, moral, and political implications and takes into account how epistemic agency differs from moral agency. Through his insightful comparisons between human and animal intelligence, Montemayor makes it clear why adopting a need-based attention approach justifies a humanitarian framework. This is an urgent, timely argument for developing AI technologies based on international human rights agreements.

London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2023. 297p.

By The Violence Prevention Network and the Centre for Feminist Foreign Policy

Anti-feminist and anti-gender ideologies - and their basis in hostility and hatred towards women and LGBTQI* people - have long been an overlooked factor in analysing radicalisation and violent extremism. Both ideologies strongly appeal to groups organised around exclusionary principles because they provide language and a framework for the defence of hierarchical structures in society (Denkovski et al., 2021, 18). This trend is increasingly manifesting itself across a spectrum of violence. Despite a striking prevalence of anti-feminism and anti-gender attitudes within extremist worldviews, these motives have been considered at best secondary when analysing extremist attacks and groups (Wolf 2021). Yet, for extremist actors, they constitute a core element of their ideologies, a relevant area of recruitment within and outside extremist scenes, and an opportunity for strategic alliances. Throughout right-wing attacks in the past decade, such as those in Christchurch, Hanau, and Halle, a clear pattern of anti-feminist and misogynistic beliefs can be detected. Within such attacks, the ideological basis for mass public violence is formed by adherence to multiple, overlapping exclusionary attitudes. For instance, one conspiracy theory that finds popularity among right-wing actors is that of the “Great Replacement”. According to this idea, feminism was invented by Jewish elites to lower birth rates and advance mass migration, with the goal of replacing white European populations with non-European, non-white people, specifically Muslims (Fedders 2018). The Christchurch attacker had uploaded an online “manifesto” titled “the Great Replacement” before the attack on two mosques that killed 51 people - illustrating how anti-feminism is often intricately interwoven with racist and anti-Semitic thinking. The issue of overlapping ideological codes, elements, and groups is becoming increasingly important as we witness growing complexity in the right-wing landscape of radicalisation and violence. However, misogyny and anti-feminism are also integral to violent attacks outside of right-wing scenes. Several terrorist attacks by members of the incel1 community, such as those in the Californian city of Isla Vista in 2014, as well as the 2018 Toronto and 2019 Tallahassee attacks, have led to an increased awareness of the incel threat and the beginning of its consideration as a security threat in Western countries (see, for instance, Moonshot 2021). While embedded in a much broader online misogynist scene, misogynist incel ideologies promote particularly extreme misogyny, anti-feminism, and sexism. Misogynist incels see women as depriving them of their natural entitlement to sex. The use of dehumanising and aggressive language – and, in parts, open calls to violence Anti-feminist and anti-gender ideologies - and their basis in hostility and hatred towards women and LGBTQI* people - have long been an overlooked factor in analysing radicalisation and violent extremism. Both ideologies strongly appeal to groups organised around exclusionary principles because they provide language and a framework for the defence of hierarchical structures in society (Denkovski et al., 2021, 18). This trend is increasingly manifesting itself across a spectrum of violence. Despite a striking prevalence of anti-feminism and anti-gender attitudes within extremist worldviews, these motives have been considered at best secondary when analysing extremist attacks and groups (Wolf 2021). Yet, for extremist actors, they constitute a core element of their ideologies, a relevant area of recruitment within and outside extremist scenes, and an opportunity for strategic alliances. Throughout right-wing attacks in the past decade, such as those in Christchurch, Hanau, and Halle, a clear pattern of anti-feminist and misogynistic beliefs can be detected. Within such attacks, the ideological basis for mass public violence is formed by adherence to multiple, overlapping exclusionary attitudes. For instance, one conspiracy theory that finds popularity among right-wing actors is that of the “Great Replacement”. According to this idea, feminism was invented by Jewish elites to lower birth rates and advance mass migration, with the goal of replacing white European populations with non-European, non-white people, specifically Muslims (Fedders 2018). The Christchurch attacker had uploaded an online “manifesto” titled “the Great Replacement” before the attack on two mosques that killed 51 people - illustrating how anti-feminism is often intricately interwoven with racist and anti-Semitic thinking. The issue of overlapping ideological codes, elements, and groups is becoming increasingly important as we witness growing complexity in the right-wing landscape of radicalisation and violence. However, misogyny and anti-feminism are also integral to violent attacks outside of right-wing scenes. Several terrorist attacks by members of the incel1 community, such as those in the Californian city of Isla Vista in 2014, as well as the 2018 Toronto and 2019 Tallahassee attacks, have led to an increased awareness of the incel threat and the beginning of its consideration as a security threat in Western countries (see, for instance, Moonshot 2021). While embedded in a much broader online misogynist scene, misogynist incel ideologies promote particularly extreme misogyny, anti-feminism, and sexism. Misogynist incels see women as depriving them of their natural entitlement to sex. The use of dehumanising and aggressive language – and, in parts, open calls to violence provides the framework in which attacks, as mentioned above, occur. The most well-known incel attacker, for instance, just weeks before the attack in Isla Vista called upon incels to “realise their true strength and numbers”, “overthrow this oppressive feminist system”, and “start envisioning a world where WOMEN FEAR YOU” (Glasstetter 2014). These attacks were broadly referenced and discussed within incel and misogynist scenes and the extreme right more specifically. In Halle, the right-wing extremist who killed two people and tried to enter a local synagogue was listening to music that makes explicit references in name and content to the incel attack in Toronto in 2018.

Berlin: Violence Prevention Network, 2021. 15p.

By The Anti-Defamation League, Center for Technology and Society

The question of who is accountable for the proliferation of antisemitism, hate, and extremism online has been hotly debated for years. Are our digital feeds really a reflection of society, or do social media platforms and tech companies actually exacerbate virulent content themselves? The companies argue that users are primarily responsible for the corrosive content soaring to the top of news feeds and reverberating between platforms. This argument serves to absolve these multi-billion-dollar companies from responsibility for any role their own products play in exacerbating hate.

A new pair of studies from ADL and TTP (Tech Transparency Project) show how some of the biggest social media platforms and search engines at times directly contribute to the proliferation of online antisemitism, hate, and extremism through their own tools and, in some cases, by creating content themselves. While there are many variables contributing to online hate, including individual users’ own behavior, our research demonstrates how these companies are taking things from bad to worse.

For these studies, we created male, female, and teen personas (without a specified gender) who searched for a basket of terms related to conspiracy theories as well as popular internet personalities, commentators, and video games across four of the biggest social media platforms, to test how these companies’ algorithms would work. In the first study, three of four platforms recommended even more extreme, contemptuously antisemitic, and hateful content. One platform, YouTube, did not take the bait. It was responsive to the persona but resisted recommending antisemitic and extremist content, proving that it is not just a problem of scale or capability.

In our second study, we tested search functions at three companies, all of which made finding hateful content and groups a frictionless experience, by autocompleting terms and, in some cases, even auto-generating content to fill in hate data voids. Notably, the companies didn’t autocomplete terms or auto-generate content for other forms of offensive content, such as pornography, proving, again, that this is not just a problem of scale or capability.

What these investigations ultimately revealed is that tech companies’ hands aren’t tied. Companies have a choice in what to prioritize, including when it comes to tuning algorithms and refining design features to either exacerbate or help curb antisemitism and extremism.

As debates rage between legislators, regulators, and judges on AI, platform transparency, and intermediary liability, these investigations underscore the urgency for both platforms and governments to do more. Based on our findings, here are three recommendations for industry and government:

Tech companies need to fix the product features that currently escalate antisemitism and auto-generate hate and extremism. Tech companies should tune their algorithms and recommendation engines to ensure they are not leading users down paths riddled with hate and antisemitism. They should also improve predictive autocomplete features and stop auto-generation of hate and antisemitism altogether.

Congress must update Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act to fit the reality of today’s internet. Section 230 was enacted before social media and search platforms as we know them existed, yet it continues to be interpreted to provide those platforms with near-blanket legal immunity for online content, even when their own tools are exacerbating hate, harassment and extremism. We believe that by updating Section 230 to better define what type of online activity should remain covered and what type of platform behavior should not, we can help ensure that social media platforms more proactively address how recommendation engines and surveillance advertising practices are exacerbating hate and extremism, which leads to online harms and potential offline violence. With the advent of social media, the use of algorithms, and the surge of artificial intelligence, tech companies are more than merely static hosting services. When there is a legitimate claim that a tech company played a role in enabling hate crimes, civil rights violations, or acts of terror, victims deserve their day in court.

We need more transparency. Users deserve to know how platform recommendation engines work. This does not need to be a trade secret-revealing exercise, but tech companies should be transparent with users about what they are seeing and why. The government also has a role to play. We’ve seen some success on this front in California, where transparency legislation was passed in 2022. Still, there’s more to do. Congress must pass federal transparency legislation so that stakeholders (the public, researchers, and civil society) have access to the information necessary to truly evaluate how tech companies’ own tools, design practices, and business decisions impact society.

Hate is on the rise. Antisemitism both online and offline is becoming normalized. A politically charged U.S. presidential election is already under way. This is a pressure cooker we cannot afford to ignore, and tech companies need to take accountability for their role in the ecosystem.

Whether you work in government or industry, are a concerned digital citizen, or a tech advocate, we hope you find this pair of reports to be informative. There is no single fix to the scourge of online hate and antisemitism, but we can and must do more to create a safer and less hate-filled internet.

New York: ADL, 2023. 18p.

By The European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights

FRA’s second ‘Being Black in the EU’ report highlights experiences of people of African descent in the EU.

It shows that, despite binding anti-discrimination law in the EU since 2000 and significant policy developments since then, people of African descent continue to face racism, discrimination and hate crime:

• Racial discrimination – 45% of respondents say they experienced racial discrimination in the 5 years before the survey, an increase compared to 39% in FRA’s last survey. In Germany and Austria, it goes over 70%. Most often, they are discriminated against when looking for work or searching for accommodation. Young people and people with higher education are most affected. Yet, discrimination remains invisible as only 9% report it.

• Harassment – 30% say they experienced racist harassment but almost no one reports it. Young women, people with higher education and those wearing religious clothing are more likely to be racially harassed.

• Racial profiling – 58% say that their most recent police stop in the year before the survey was a result of racial profiling. Those who perceive their stop as racial profiling trust the police much less.

• Work – 34% felt racially discriminated against when looking for a job and 31% at work in the 5 years before the survey. Compared to people generally, they are more likely to have only temporary contracts and are over-qualified for their job.

• Housing and poverty – rising inflation and cost of living have put more people of African descent at higher risk of poverty, compared to the general population. Some 33% face difficulties to make ends meet and 14% cannot afford to keep their house warm, compared with 18% and 7% of people generally. Simply finding a place to live is a struggle for many, with 31% saying they were racially discriminated against when trying to find accommodation.

• Education – young people of African descent are three times more likely to leave school early, compared to young people generally. More parents in 2022 say that their children experienced racism at school than in 2016.

  To tackle racism and discrimination effectively, FRA calls on EU countries to:

• properly enforce anti-discrimination legislation as well as effective, proportionate and dissuasive sanctions;

• identify and record hate crimes, and consider bias motivation as an aggravating circumstance when determining

• penalties;

• collect equality data, including on ‘ethnic or racial origin’ to assess the situation and monitor progress;

• ensure that equality bodies have the necessary mandates and resources to tackle discrimination and support victims;

• take steps to prevent and eradicate discriminatory institutional practices and culture in policing, drawing on FRA’s guide on preventing unlawful profiling;

• develop specific policies to address racism and racial discrimination in education, employment, housing and healthcare.

This report is part of FRA’s third EU-wide survey looking at experiences of immigrants and descendants of immigrants across the EU.

It analyses the responses of over 6,700 people of African descent living in 13 EU countries: Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, Poland, Portugal, Spain and Sweden.

Vienna, Austria: European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights, 2023. 8p.

By Julien Bellaiche

On 2 August 2023, a federal jury sentenced Robert Gregory Bowers to death for committing the deadliest antisemitic attack in the history of the United States. Five years earlier, on 27 October 2018, he entered the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh and opened fire on worshippers who had gathered to celebrate Shabbat, one of the most important ritual observances in Judaism. Eleven people were killed and seven more injured.

While in custody, Bowers reportedly expressed demographic conspiracy beliefs to explain his act. These narratives claim that ethnic, religious or national groups are under threat of eradication by outsiders due to demographic changes resulting from plots instigated by diverse sets of actors.

This report examines the ideological underpinnings of the Pittsburgh synagogue attack and its long-term impact on the extreme right five years later. It does so by delving into the key narratives that motivated Bowers’ act and assessing their influence on subsequent attacks and plots. It then investigates the ways in which the attack and the attacker continue to be referenced and glorified in extreme-right communities online.

Key Findings

This report traces the history of demographic conspiracy theories in the far right in the West back to the 19th and early 20th centuries, when French discourses of “replacement” resonated with fears of miscegenation in the United States. These discourses shaped alternately the figures of Jews, Muslims, immigrants and progressive forces as racialised collectives plotting the eradication of White people and/or Western cultures. Over a number of years, these discursive trends interlaced and merged to produce labelled demographic conspiracy theories, which are known today under various names such as the “White Genocide” and the “Great Replacement” theories.

An analysis of Bowers’ activity on the social media platform Gab highlights the role demographic conspiracy theories played in Bowers’ interpretations and representations of social realities. These narratives helped shape the image of Jews as enablers of an alleged invasion of migrants endangering the future of White people.

In the context of White supremacist attacks, Bowers’ influence is linked to broader conspiracy beliefs that view the alleged struggle for the survival of the “White race” against concerted annihilation attempts as central. Other attackers who cited Bowers as a role model displayed various demographic conspiracy beliefs, picked different targets, but praised one another as committed “ethno-soldiers” sacrificing themselves for the cause of preserving the “White race”.

Despite his relatively modest popularity, Bowers remains regularly commemorated and glorified within extreme-right communities online five years later. “Screw your optics, I’m going in”, his last words on Gab, turned into a popular slogan used as a catchphrase to incite violence. Bowers was also introduced into militant accelerationists’ pantheon of “saints” and was regularly promoted as a holy figure within these online communities.

London: King’s College London , Washington, DC: George Washington University, Program on Extremism,. 2023. 48p.

Amanda Y. Agan and Sonja B. Starr

Using a large field experiment, we show that racial composition of employer neighborhoods predicts employment discrimination patterns in a direction suggesting in-group bias. Our data also show racial disparities in the geographic distribution of job postings. Simulations illustrate how these patterns combine to shape disparities. When jobs are located far from Black neighborhoods, Black applicants are doubly disadvantaged: discrimination patterns disfavor them, and they have fewer nearby opportunities. Finally, building on prior work on Ban-the-Box laws, we show that employers in less Black neighborhoods appear much likelier to stereotype Black applicants as potentially criminal when they lack criminal record

University of Chicago Coase-Sandor Institute for Law & Economics Research Paper No. 916

By Kiana Cox And Khadijah Edwards

Many say key U.S. institutions should be rebuilt to ensure fair treatment. More than a year after the murder of George Floyd and the national protests, debate and political promises that ensued, 65% of Black Americans say the increased national attention on racial inequality has not led to changes that improved their lives.1 And 44% say equality for Black people in the United States is not likely to be achieved, according to newly released findings from an October 2021 survey of Black Americans by Pew Research Center.

This is somewhat of a reversal in views from September 2020, when half of Black adults said the increased national focus on issues of race would lead to major policy changes to address racial inequality in the country and 56% expected changes that would make their lives better.

At the same time, many Black Americans are concerned about racial discrimination and its impact. Roughly eight-in-ten say they have personally experienced discrimination because of their race or ethnicity (79%), and most also say discrimination is the main reason many Black people cannot get ahead (68%).

Even so, Black Americans have a clear vision for how to achieve change when it comes to racial inequality. This includes support for significant reforms to or complete overhauls of several U.S. institutions to ensure fair treatment, particularly the criminal justice system; political engagement, primarily in the form of voting; support for Black businesses to advance Black communities; and reparations in the forms of educational, business and homeownership assistance. Yet alongside their assessments of inequality and ideas about progress exists pessimism about whether U.S. society and its institutions will change in ways that would reduce racism.

These findings emerge from an extensive Pew Research Center survey of 3,912 Black Americans conducted online Oct. 4-17, 2021. The survey explores how Black Americans assess their position in U.S. society and their ideas about social change. Overall, Black Americans are clear on what they think the problems are facing the country and how to remedy them. However, they are skeptical that meaningful changes will take place in their lifetime.

Black Americans see racism in our laws as a big problem and discrimination as a roadblock to progress

WASHINGTON DC: PEW RESEARCH CENTER,

By Katie Zafft, et al.

In September 2022, the City of Duluth, with input from Duluth’s Racial Bias Audit Team (RBAT), contracted with the Crime and Justice Institute (CJI) to conduct a racial bias audit of the Duluth Police Department (DPD). CJI collaborated with the community and the Department to provide a holistic and comprehensive assessment of Department operations and interactions with the community with respect to the concerns raised about racial and ethnic disparities in police practices and operations. The scope of the audit largely reflects the status of the Department and experiences of community members within the past five years. Assessments of policies and trainings mainly represent the most recent versions of materials unless the audit team was provided materials that were previously used. The City/RBAT identified the following project scope in their request for services: • “Assess, monitor, and assist the DPD in concert with the community to uncover any aspects of implicit bias, as well as systemic and individual racial bias. • Assess the impact of enforcement operations on historically marginalized and discriminated against populations. • Provide recommendations for reforms that improve community-oriented policing practices, transparency, professionalism, non-discriminatory practices, accountability, community inclusion, effectiveness, equity and public trust. These recommendations should also consider statutory requirements, national best practices and current scientifically valid methodology, and community expectations. • Engage the community and employees of DPD to understand both experiences and expectations of interactions between both groups.”1 Assessment Goals and Objectives The scope of the audit, as directed by the audit goals developed by the Racial Bias Audit Team, focuses on eleven items that we consider to be three distinct areas of work: Department operations, Department interactions with the community, and the role of the Duluth Citizen Review Board (DCRB).

Boston: Crime and Justice Institute, 2023. 90p.

by Kilolo Kijakazi, K. Steven Brown, Donnie Charleston ,Kilolo Kijakazi ,Charmaine Runes

For most of its history, the United States excluded people of color from its main pathways of opportunity and upward mobility. This history of discriminatory policies and institutional practices created deep inequities across social and economic domains. But we envision a more equitable future in which the policies, programs, and institutional practices that produced inequitable outcomes are corrected and the effects are reversed. Achieving that vision would mean closing four yawning equity gaps between people of color and white people in the United States:  Closing the racial wealth gap would enable all people to invest in their own and their children’s futures, buy a home, obtain a quality education, and save for a secure retirement.  Eliminating racial inequities in public school quality would give all children the solid educational foundation they need to succeed in the 21st-century economy.  Closing employment and earnings gaps would provide all people with the dignity and security of a quality job, the opportunity to contribute to the nation’s prosperity, and the resources to support their and their children’s well-being and future prospects.  Ending punitive policing would make people and communities safer and increase confidence in the justice system. These gaps are wide and deeply entrenched. Racist policies and practices have been part of the nation since its inception, practiced by “founding fathers” and presidents who wrote and spoke about equality while engaging in the purchase, bondage, and sale of people of African descent. These policies were intended to subjugate people of color and afford dominance to white people. Ibram Kendi (2016) asserts that these policies led to racist ideas to justify the systemic barriers that created racial inequity and that each period of progress has been followed by a backlash of racist policies and practices. Abolition and the Civil War were followed by segregation enforced by laws, regulations, white mob violence, and lynchings. The civil rights movement and legislation were succeeded by cuts in taxes— primarily benefiting the wealthy—and federal assistance programs and the initiation of mass incarceration. The election of the first African American president has been followed by a curtailment in regulations and policies that enforce fair housing, reduce inequities in the criminal justice system, and protect consumers from racial targeting by predatory lenders. Looking ahead, major disruptive forces—technological innovation, increasingly frequent and severe climate events, and global economic change—could further widen today’s equity gaps. Moreover, demographic changes are making the nation more racially and ethnically diverse (Colby and Ortman 2015). Although many people are excited and proud about these changes, some fear the change of familiar social roles and ways of life (Danbold and Huo 2015). And this fear has resulted in a tendency to support less-inclusive policies (Craig and Richeson 2014). In the face of these profound challenges, civic leaders, advocates, elected officials, and philanthropists are confronting our country’s history of unjust and oppressive policies and taking action to promote equity and expand access to opportunity. Many approaches, like those that equip people of color with information and tools to successfully navigate existing systems, modify policies and practices to expand access and options, or enforce anti-discrimination protections, are making some progress. Other emerging strategies focus intentionally on the detrimental effects of past policies and offer bolder remedies that more directly address the roots of persistent inequities.

Washington, DC: Urban Institute 2019. 54p.

by Charles Fain Lehman

Since the 2020 “racial reckoning,” there has been increased political momentum behind reparations for slavery. Debates about reparations have moved from the halls of academia to legislatures in California and a number of cities. Americans and their leaders are increasingly asking: Are reparations justified at all? And, if so, who should get how much? This report concerns itself with a different question: Who pays for reparations? Reparations are a form of compensation for historical injustice. But many Americans did not have any ancestors present in the country at the time that injustice was committed. It is hard to argue that Americans whose ancestors arrived after 1860 should be on the hook for the costs of reparations. What fraction of nonblack Americans have ancestors who arrived after the end of the Civil War? Using demographic modeling techniques, this report pegs the figure as high as 70%, including more than half the non-Hispanic white population. These Americans are the descendants of immigrants who came to the U.S. either in the first great wave of immigration in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, or in the second great wave, begun in 1965 and still ongoing today. Many of these more recent arrivals are at the top of America’s economic distribution. Indeed, the recent-arrival share of top wealth earners is likely only to grow in coming years, given the prevalence of immigrants and children of immigrants at the head of top businesses. This means that the base of people and wealth that could plausibly be taxed for reparations is shrinking and will continue to shrink for the foreseeable future. This dynamic plays out in other areas of social policy. Any transfer or subsidy proposal that is justified by historical injustice—e.g., affirmative action—will lose legitimacy as the population changes. This is an important, and often overlooked, feature not only of the reparations debate but of debates about such proposals in general. great period, beginning in 1965 and extending to the present. This second group, furthermore, is represented among the wealthiest Americans and American households, challenging the feasibility of a “soak the rich” approach to reparations. Even if we otherwise grant the arguments for reparations, this basic demographic fact—that a majority of nonblack Americans are attributable to post–Civil War immigration—throws a wrench into the reparations project. Publicly funded reparations for slavery will entail taking money from tens of millions of people who are not—even under assumptions of inherited guilt that are already wildly at odds with the American tradition—plausibly responsible for slavery. To ask the question “Who pays?” produces uncomfortable answers for those who would like to see reparations paid.

New York: Manhattan Institute, 2023. 26p.

By John Jenkins

This paper seeks to consider the question of the relationship between Islamism (in all its forms) and parts of the Left, not just in France but more broadly. It proceeds from the assumption that such a relationship exists and is not simply tactical.

London: Policy Exchange, 2021. 73p.

Kumar Ramakrishna

One significant highlight of the recent Singapore Terrorism Threat Assessment Report (STTAR) 2023 was that since 2015, 11 self-radicalised Singaporean youths aged 20 or below have been detained under the Internal Security Act (ISA). In addition, three of the four cases dealt with since the previous STTAR in 2022 involved youths. STTAR 2023 noted that the youngest detainee was only 15 years old.

The three Singaporean youths referenced in STTAR 2023 were all supporters of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) and had been radicalised by Islamist extremist narratives online. The 15-year-old mentioned earlier was also a staunch supporter of the rival Al Qaeda (AQ) global terror network. An 18-year-old detainee apparently went so far as to have planned to declare Coney Island (about 133 hectares in size and lying very close to the main island of Singapore) to be an ISIS wilayat (province). He had also planned to travel to overseas conflict zones to fight alongside ISIS’s affiliates.

Such concern with youth radicalisation is not new. In 2018, Singaporean authorities had already observed that youth aged between 17 and 19 were “falling prey to extremist ideologies” through “heavy reliance” on “social media and the Internet” for information.

There are two observations that can be made in this regard.

Global and Regional Trends

First, youth radicalisation is not just a Singaporean, but a global and regional issue. Terrorism researchers J. M. Berger and Jessica Stern in their publication ISIS: The State of Terror (2015) affirmed that ISIS “actively recruits children” to engage in “combat, including suicide missions”. AQ is hardly different. US intelligence has long warned that AQ sought to radicalise western youth for the purpose of mounting terror strikes in the West – including suicide attacks.

The Malaysian government noted in 2017 that “around 80 per cent of the arrests that the Malaysian police” had made since September 2016 were of people “under the age of 40”. The same year, the Indonesian government estimated that about 101 youths had joined ISIS in Iraq and Syria. Analysts since 2018 have worried that the use of youth in terrorist attacks in Southeast Asia may well be a “future trend”.

Low-Tech, Lone-Actor Attacks

Second, STTAR 2023 observed that self-radicalised youth, rather than mounting complicated attacks using firearms and explosive materials that are difficult to procure in Singapore, could nevertheless “pivot towards other available means for conducting terrorist attacks, such as knives” in conducting so-called “lone actor” attacks.

This low-tech, lone-actor attack modality has been actively promoted by ISIS for years. A 2016 article in the online ISIS magazine Rumiyah enjoined supporters around the world to “stage knife attacks in public places”, as knives were easy to obtain and “effective weapons of terror”. In fact, it has been observed that the “use of knives by single jihadists is gaining popularity around the world”.

Understanding Youth Radicalisation

Youth radicalisation is a complex and multifaceted phenomenon. Three key explanatory factors can be outlined briefly.

First, at a psychological level, during the teenage years the executive reasoning centres of the brain develop more slowly than the emotional parts. This helps explain why teenagers between 18 and 20 years of age often appear as impulsive and rash. Additionally, such emotional immaturity frequently expresses itself as a quest for absolute, black-and-white, intellectual and moral certainty.

Hence STTAR 2023 observes that the essentially “structured and dichotomous” extremist worldview appears as “more appealing to the young”. Emotionally vulnerable youth are also relatively susceptible to false extremist promises of excitement and thrills – all for an ostensibly righteous cause. In essence, because youth are in the midst of a “tumultuous biological, cognitive, social and emotional transition to adulthood”, they are relatively ripe targets for terrorist cultivation.

Second, experts have observed that youth coming from unstable family contexts with weak or no father figures tend to possess fragile egos and identities, ill-prepared to endure life’s ordinary challenges. Such youth, as James W. Jones in Blood That Cries Out from the Earth (2012) notes, tend to seek “external objects that claim to be perfect and ideal” and that supposedly offer “that necessary sense of connection to something of value” that can “buttress” their “self-esteem”.

This is precisely where ISIS and AQ propaganda strike home. The importance of stable families cannot be overstated. In Saudi Arabia, for instance, it was found that youth who had grown up “without their parents present” were at risk, as their “personal and social problems” appeared to “contribute to radicalisation”.

Third, youths growing up in subcultures that are relatively insulated from the wider community are also at risk. In particular, subcultures that promote exclusionary attitudes that are “self-righteous, prejudicial and condemnatory toward people outside their groups” may inadvertently soften the ground for future exploitation by extremists.

Meanwhile, subcultures that even passively promote retrograde norms of masculinity, tend to also pave the way for extremist ideologues to later persuade male youth that taking up violence against one’s putative enemies – including up-close-and-personal knife attacks – is to be a “real man” and “heroic”.

Policies Needed to Counter Youth Radicalisation

The foregoing analysis suggests that a suite of integrated policy interventions are needed in three broad areas to counter youth radicalisation.

First, policies are needed to directly foster strong and stable family contexts in Singapore. Ameliorating the societal economic and competitive pressures that generate stress levels negatively affecting parenting is important. Fundamentally, fostering a healthy family unit anchored by strong father figures and role models helps encourage normal ego and intellectual development in youth. This also strengthens their emotional and intellectual resilience against false extremist promises of absolute intellectual and moral certainties.

Second, cultural and other community institutions have a role in actively promoting inclusiveness. Such institutions could assist parents and communities in socialising their young into appropriate prosocial behaviour as they grow up in a secular, diverse and globalised multicultural society like Singapore. The community-building elements of the ongoing SG Secure campaign in Singapore have much relevance in the socialisation process.

Third, a central piece of the policy puzzle must be education. Ideally, whether secular or religious, the education of our youth should aim to broaden intellectual horizons. The core idea is to develop in youth intellectual resilience against the “simplified monocausal interpretation of the world” offered by ISIS and AQ – and other extremists – “where you are either with them or against them”.

Another key aspect of the educational space – religious and secular – is to promote healthy and balanced societal norms about masculinity. The aim is to create mental firewalls against attempts by online extremists to encourage more toxic and violent expressions of what it means to be male. In this context, as STTAR 2023 states, rather than travelling to conflict zones to fight, Singaporean youth should know that there are peaceful, legitimate and more effective ways to support good causes around the world, such as “the cause of helping Palestine”.

Conclusion

The United Nations Plan of Action to Prevent Violent Extremism urges that in the struggle against violent extremism, the world simply must “harness the idealism, creativity and energy of young people”. In this regard, the hearts and minds of Singaporean youth is absolutely one strategic battlespace that we must not ignore.

Singapore: S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies, NTU Singapore, 2023. 4p.

By Megan Squire

Deplatforming websites—removing infrastructure services they need to operate, such as website hosting—can reduce the spread and reach of extremism and hate online, but when does deplatforming succeed? This report shows that deplatforming can decrease the popularity of extremist websites, especially when done without warning. We present four case studies of English-language, U.S.-based extremist websites that were deplatformed: the Daily Stormer, 8chan/8kun, TheDonald.win/Patriots.win, and Nicholas Fuentes/America First. In all of these cases, the infrastructure service providers considered deplatforming only after highly publicized or violent events, indicating that at the infrastructure level, the bar to deplatforming is high. All of the site administrators in these four cases also elected to take measures to remain online after they were deplatformed. To understand how deplatforming affected these sites, we collected and analyzed publicly available data that measures website-popularity rankings over time.

We learned four important lessons about how deplatforming affects extremist websites:

• It can cause popularity rankings to decrease immediately.

• It may take users a long time to return to the website. Sometimes, the website never regains its previous popularity.

• Unexpected deplatforming makes it take longer for the website to regain its previous popularity levels.

• Replicating deplatformed services such as discussion forums or live-streaming video products on a stand-alone website presents significant challenges, including higher costs and smaller audiences.

  Our findings show that fighting extremism online requires not only better content moderation and more transparency from social media companies but also cooperation from infrastructure providers like Cloudflare, GoDaddy, and Google, which have avoided attention and critique.

New York: Anti-Defamation League, Center for Technology and Society, 2023. 37p.

By Sarah J Jackson

It is clear in news coverage of recent uprisings for Black life that journalists and media organizations struggle to reconcile the fact of ongoing racism with narratives of U.S. progress. Bound up in this struggle is how collective memory-or rather whose collective memory-shapes the practices of news-making. Here I interrogate how television news shapes collective memory of Black activism through analysis of a unique moment when protests over police abuse of Black people became newsworthy simultaneous with widespread commemorations of the civil rights movement. I detail the complex terrain of nostalgia and misremembering that provides cover for moderate and conservative dele-gitimization of contemporary Black activism. At the same time, counter-memories, introduced most often by members of the Black public sphere, offer alternative, actionable, and comprehensive interpretations of Black protest.

Communication, Culture and Critique, Volume 14, Issue 3, September 2021, Pages 385–404,

By The Anti-Defamation League, Center on Extremism

Since the start of 2021, Texas has experienced a significant amount of extremist activity. One driver of this phenomenon is Patriot Front, a white supremacist group that has distributed propaganda across Texas – and the rest of the U.S. – with alarming frequency, using the state as a base of operations. Two other factors are extremists who continue to target the LGBTQ+ community and QAnon supporters who have gathered for conferences and rallies across the state.

Texas has also seen a significant increase in antisemitic incidents over the last two years. It recorded the country’s fifth-highest number of antisemitic incidents in 2022, at a time when ADL has tracked the highest-ever number of antisemitic incidents nationwide.

This report will explore a range of extremist groups and movements operating in Texas and highlights the key extremist and antisemitic trends and incidents in the state in 2021 and 2022. It also includes noteworthy events and incidents from the first half of 2023.

Key Statistics

• Antisemitic Incidents: According to the ADL’s annual Audit of Antisemitic Incidents, Texas has seen a dramatic rise in antisemitic incidents in recent years. In 2022, the number of incidents increased by 89% from 2021 levels, rising from 112 to 212 incidents. Since 2021, ADL has tracked a total of 365 incidents in the state.

• Extremist Plots and Murders: In 2021 and 2022, ADL documented two extremist murders in Texas and six terrorist plots. In 2023, a gunman who embraced antisemitism, misogyny and white supremacy opened fire in a mall parking lot in Allen, killing eight people and wounding seven more before police shot and killed him.

• Extremist Events: Since 2021, ADL has documented 28 extremist events in Texas, including banner drops, flash demonstrations, training events, fight nights, protests, rallies and meetings.

• White Supremacist Propaganda: In 2022, ADL documented 526 instances of white supremacist propaganda distributions across Texas, a 60% increase from 2021 (329). There have been 1,073 propaganda incidents since 2021. The groups responsible for the majority of the incidents were Patriot Front and the Goyim Defense League (GDL).

• Hate Crimes Statistics: According to the latest FBI hate crimes statistics from 2021, there were 542 reported hate crimes in Texas in that year, an increase of 33% from the 406 incidents recorded in 2020. Hate and bias crime data in Texas and nationally highlights how hate crimes disproportionately impact the Black community.

• Insurrection Statistics: Seventy-four of the 968 individuals logged by the George Washington University Program on Extremism who have been charged in relation to the January 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol are Texas residents, the second most in the nation.

• ADL and Princeton’s Bridging Divides Initiative Threats and Harassment Dataset: The Threats and Harassment Dataset (THD) tracks unique incidents of threats and harassment against local U.S. officials between January 1, 2020, and September 23, 2022 in three policy areas (election, education and health). Texas recorded seven incidents of threats and harassment against local officials.

New York: ADL, Center on Extremism, 2023. 23p.

By The Anti-Defamation League

In May 2023, a man outraged over abortion rights set his sights on a building in Danville, Illinois, that was slated to become a clinic offering women’s health services, including abortions. The man, Philip Buyno of Prophetstown, allegedly filled containers with gasoline and loaded them into his car. His alleged efforts to destroy the clinic – by ramming his car into the building and throwing a gas can into the space – failed, and he was arrested. He later told the FBI he’d “finish the job” if given the chance.

Buyno was an extremist, intent on attacking his perceived enemy no matter the cost. Over the past several years, Americans have witnessed a barrage of extremist activity: attacks on our democratic institutions, antisemitic incidents, white supremacist propaganda efforts, vicious, racially motivated attacks, bias crimes against the LGBTQ+ community and violent threats to women’s healthcare providers.

Illinoisians have watched these same hatreds – and more – manifest in their own state.

This report explores a range of extremist groups and movements operating in Illinois and highlights the key extremist and antisemitic trends and incidents in the state in 2021 and 2022. It also includes noteworthy events and incidents from the first half of 2023.

There is no single narrative that tells the story of extremism and hate in Illinois. Instead, the impact is widespread and touches many communities. As in the rest of the country, both white supremacist and antisemitic activity have increased significantly over the last two years, but that’s not the whole story.

The Prairie State is also home to a sizeable number of current and former law enforcement officers who have at one point belonged to or associated with extremist organizations or movements. Our research additionally shows a continued threat to Illinois’s women’s health facilities, which have been targeted with arson and other violent plots by anti-abortion extremists. This reflects the broader, national threat to reproductive rights.

Key Statistics

Antisemitic Incidents: According to ADL’s annual Audit of Antisemitic Incidents, Illinois has seen a dramatic rise in antisemitic incidents in recent years. In 2022, the number of incidents increased by 128% from 2021 levels, rising from 53 to 121. The state’s total was the seventh-highest number of incidents in the country in a year when ADL tracked the highest-ever number of antisemitic incidents nationwide. This is a dramatic increase from 2016, when there were 10 incidents. Preliminary numbers through June 2023 indicate that there have been at least 33 additional antisemitic incidents in the state.

Extremist Plots and Murders: In 2021 and 2022, ADL documented one extremist murder in Illinois. In November 2022, a man allegedly intentionally drove the wrong way on an interstate highway and crashed into another car, killing the driver. The man said he wanted to kill himself after being convicted for crimes committed while participating in the January 6 insurrection, and he has been charged with additional crimes, including first-degree murder.

Extremist Events: Since 2021, ADL has documented four white supremacist extremist events in Illinois, predominately marches and protests.

White Supremacist Propaganda: In 2022, ADL documented 198 instances of white supremacist propaganda distributions across Illinois, an increase of 111% from 2021 (94). Through May 2023, there have been an additional 64 white supremacist propaganda incidents. Patriot Front was responsible for a large majority of white supremacist propaganda throughout Illinois.

Hate Crimes Statistics: According to the latest FBI hate crimes statistics available, there were 101 reported hate crimes in Illinois that targeted a variety of communities, including Jewish, Black and Asian American and Pacific Islander. This total was an increase of 80% from the 56 incidents recorded in 2020.

Insurrection Statistics: Thirty-six of the 968 individuals logged by the George Washington University Program on Extremism who have been charged in relation to the January 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol are Illinois residents.

ADL and Princeton University’s Bridging Divides Initiative Threats and Harassment Dataset: The Threats and Harassment Dataset (THD) tracks unique incidents of threats and harassment against local U.S. officials between January 1, 2020, and September 23, 2022, in three policy areas (election, education and health). Illinois recorded six incidents of threats and harassment against local officials.

New York, ADL, Center on Extremism, 2023. 24p.