Internet

After a 13-year-old was sentenced last week, a young victim of radicalisation talks about how white supremacists target children. John was 15 when a member of his Facebook group volunteered to become Britain’s “first white suicide bomber”. Another advocated attending Friday prayers at the local mosque and “slaying people where they stood”. Another wanted to firebomb the place of worship. Ultimately, no blood was spilt. Police soon raided several homes linked to the group. John and a friend – also 15 and an adherent of far-right ideology – buried an arsenal of knives and machetes to ensure officers never found them. John became increasingly radicalised by an online barrage of far-right disinformation. “Posts of homeless British soldiers were set against Muslim families being given free homes. Now I know the posts were all fake, but the 15-year-old me didn’t bother to fact-check.” The worry is that John’s contemporaries won’t either. A surge of online extremism and disinformation has arrived at a time of lockdown-induced isolation, loneliness and home-schooling, creating what police call a “perfect storm”. One British far-right group has even started pushing an alternative white-supremacist school curriculum for lockdown learning. Last week, the youngest person in the UK to commit a terrorism offence was sentenced. Only 13 when he downloaded a bomb-making manual, the teenager subsequently became the leader of the UK arm of a banned neo-Nazi terrorist group that glorified individuals responsible for racist mass murder. His swift journey from lonely adolescent to UK leader of the Feuerkrieg Division is disquieting not for its uniqueness but for its part in a growing pattern. At least 17 children, some as young as 14, have been arrested on terrorism charges over the past 18 months. A new neo-Nazi group led by a 15-year-old from Derby emerged last year. Its entire membership consisted of children. The group discussed attacking migrants in Dover and how to acquire and modify weapons. (…) 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. Meanwhile, new research reveals how rightwing extremists are using fresh methods to lure young recruits. Researchers for an initiative supported by the UN counter-terrorism executive directorate identified the online game creation-system Roblox as having been used by rightwing extremists to recreate playable versions of infamous far-right atrocities. Tech Against Terrorism researchers found users being invited to roleplay Anders Breivik’s 2011 attack on the Norwegian island of Utoya, the 2019 mosque shootings in Christchurch, New Zealand, and the 2019 terrorist attack in El Paso, Texas. Significantly, the rapidly growing UK white-nationalist group Patriotic Alternative is actively targeting younger recruits and recently started Call of Duty Warcraft gaming tournaments for its supporters. (…) The research by Tech Against Terrorism also found that extremists used language on gaming platforms such as Roblox – which says it swiftly acts on any inappropriate content – to recruit new youngsters online. They found that extremists used references to the computer game Minecraft or Roblox in their posts in order to hide their messages as online gaming chat. One example, found on the social messaging app Telegram, involves a user posting comprehensive bomb-making instructions to a youngster with the message: “Hey kid, want to make a mailbox bomb for Roblox?” Also on Telegram was a Roblox simulation of a vehicle attack against protesters, a recurrent theme of far-right memes, and a real life feature of last year’s Black Lives Matter protests in the US.

via guardian: How far right uses video games and tech to lure and radicalise teenage recruits

A Palm Bay man who authorities say went inside the U.S. Capitol during a riot by supporters of then-President Donald Trump was arrested Wednesday at Orlando International Airport. Steve Omar Maldonado, who also goes by Emilio Maldonado, was arrested at the airport by FBI agents, a spokesman for the U.S. Attorney’s Office said in an email. He is facing charges of entering a restricted building and disorderly conduct on Capitol grounds. At a hearing Wednesday, a federal judge ordered Maldonado’s release but restricted his travel to the Middle District of Florida and court appearances in Washington D.C., court documents show. He was also banned from having any firearms and ordered to surrender his passport. Maldonado was also appointed a public defender. According to business records and a company website, he is a charter boat captain who offers diving and spear fishing trips on the Treasure Coast. He is at least the thirteenth person from Florida to be arrested for the Jan. 6 insurrection at the Capitol, according to a Justice Department list of defendants charged in federal court in the District of Columbia. FBI agents say Steve Maldonado, who is wearing a white hat in this photo, was arrested Wednesday after being accused of going inside the U.S. Capitol during a riot by loyalists of then-President Donald Trump (Photo courtesy of FBI).
Two people who knew Maldonado recognized him in television news coverage of the riot and took pictures of him, which were later sent to FBI agents Jan. 17, according to an arrest warrant. One of them also identified Maldonado in the FBI’s photo collection of individuals wanted in connection to violence at the Capitol, the complaint said. Authorities said a third person who knew Maldonado received videos he recorded inside and outside the Capitol building, including inside the U.S. Senate chamber. Those videos were later provided to the FBI. Agents said Maldonado was also captured on surveillance video wearing a white hat that said “Trump,” according to the warrant. The FBI says surveillance cameras captured Steve Maldonado inside the Capitol building wearing a white Trump hat (Photo courtesy fo FBI). During an interview with agents, Maldonado said he and his friend attended the “Stop the Steal” rally where Trump urged his followers to “fight like hell” and march to the Capitol building in an attempt to stop Congress from certifying Joe Biden’s presidential victory.

via orlandosentinel: Palm Bay man arrested at Orlando airport for role in U.S. Capitol riot

Since its founding, the antigovernment group Oath Keepers has steeped itself in conspiracy theories and trained for a revolution against the state. Members’ involvement in the Capitol insurrection was the latest example in a long history of the group bucking government authority. The Oath Keepers, who derive their name from the Constitution, vowing to protect the U.S. from all enemies foreign and domestic, took part in an insurrection at the Capitol on Jan. 6. Motivated by Trump’s rhetoric and buoyed by the QAnon conspiracy theory, the group parroted false claims that Democrats stole the 2020 election from former President Donald Trump. In D.C., they collaborated with a violent mob who broke into the Capitol building, intent on stopping the certification of the election. Five people died as a result of the attack. Members of the Oath Keepers militia group including Jessica Marie Watkins (far left), who has since been indicted by federal authorities for her role in the siege on the Capitol, stand among supporters of U.S. President Donald Trump occupying the east front steps of the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C., on Jan. 6. Photo by Reuters/Jim Bourg
Oath Keepers founder Stewart Rhodes, in tandem with Alex Jones and Owen Shroyer of Infowars, called on Americans to go to D.C. to “stand up against election theft.” On Nov. 10, Rhodes made an appearance on Infowars, where he is a regular guest, and declared that Americans should converge on D.C. the way they stormed up to the Bundy Ranch in Nevada.
The FBI later charged three individuals associated with Oath Keepers for their role in the insurrection: Jessica Marie Watkins and Donovan Ray Crowl of Champaign County, Ohio, and Thomas Caldwell of Clarke County, Virginia. Watkins and Crowl belonged to the Ohio State Regular Militia, a subset of Oath Keepers that paid dues to the organization, according to the FBI. Caldwell, Crowl and Watkins were indicted on charges of conspiracy, obstructing an official proceeding, destruction of government property and unlawful entry on restricted building or grounds. According to a government’s memorandum filed Feb. 11 that recommended Watkins face pre-trial detention, “Watkins joined a violent mob that overwhelmed law enforcement and destroyed government property, re-creating in modern times events not seen in this nation since the War of 1812. In this backdrop, Watkins and her co-conspirators formed a subset of the most extreme insurgents that plotted then tried to execute a sophisticated plan to forcibly stop the results of a Presidential Election from taking effect. And she did this in coordination and in concert with a virulently antigovernment militia members.” Additional individuals wearing Oath Keepers attire were seen inside the Capitol building. Oath Keepers directed other members to wear plain clothes according to the organization’s website: “As always, while conducting security operations, we will have some of our men out in ‘grey man’ mode, without identifiable Oath Keepers gear.” Members of the group were also spotted providing security for Roger Stone at a “Stop the Steal” protest in Washington on Jan. 5, the evening before the attack on the Capitol.

via splcenter: Well Before The Jan. 6 Insurrection, Oath Keepers Trafficked in Violence and Conspiracy Theories