A new report published on Tuesday explored how a generation of far-right teenagers are using mainstream social media platforms, including Instagram, Twitter, TikTok and Telegram, to radicalize and recruit other teens and young people into racist and antisemitic ideologies. Research for the report was carried out by two UK organizations, the International Centre for the Study of Radicalization (ICSR) and the Community Security Trust (CST). In view of the rising number of teens arrested for terrorism offenses, the report — “We are Generation Terror!”: Youth-on-youth Radicalization in Extreme-Right Youth Groups” — dove deep into the dynamics and recruitment strategies of ten racial nationalist youth groups across Western Europe. The groups include recently convicted British Hand activists, who operate mainly online; the rapidly-growing Spanish group Bastión Frontal; and the UK’s Blutkrieg Division, founded by a 16-year-old boy in Newcastle, who has been convicted of encouraging terrorism and stirring up racial and religious hatred. “Young people – politicized, active and highly connected – are no longer just passive consumers of online terrorist content by adult groomers but are themselves propaganda creators, group organizers, peer recruiters, extremist financiers and terrorist convicts,” wrote ICSR Research Fellow Hannah Rose, who co-authored the report.
via algemeiner: Far-Right European Youth Groups Using Mix of Social Media Platforms to Lure Peers to Racist, Antisemitic Ideologies, Report Reveals