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The world of technology has developed at increasing speed over recent decades, and with it, a flurry of change to how we understand society. Meaningful relationships being only a click away has reshaped what it means to be connected – people thousands of miles away can consume one’s life, yet the relationships with those nearby become distant.
This drive towards online spaces has allowed dangerous ideologies to grow and flourish into large communities. Online radicalisation that prevalently targets young men has dominated news stories in recent years, especially when these people leave online spaces to commit harm in the real world.
Elliot Rodger, a self proclaimed incel with a hatred for women, killed six people in California back in 2014, posting a YouTube video moments before his rampage that detailed his motivations for the attack – namely, that he would exact ‘revenge on the society’ that denied him sex and love. Rodger is hailed as a hero within the incel community, and despite the video being taken down multiple times, versions of it can still be found.
Since 2014, the frequency of these attacks has increased around the world – for example, in the Plymouth shooting, the Toronto massacre, and hate crimes such as those in LA committed by Johnny Young. The perpetrators of these attacks all identified with the incel ideology picked up in online spaces, yet the threat that they posed didn’t appear serious until after the attacks occurred. Jake Davidson, who committed the shooting in Plymouth, discussed the incel movement on social media before going onto kill five people.
The Ministry of Justice published a report on the role of the internet in radicalisation in 2021, finding that the internet played a prominent role in radicalisation processes. Interestingly, they also noted that, ‘the platforms used by convicted extremists had changed over time, with a move from using specific extremist websites to open social media platforms’.
This shift from enclosed to open spaces shows the worrying growth of extremist spaces online. The recent case involving Gisele Pelicot, a French woman who was unknowingly raped by her husband and countless others for almost a decade, revealed that her ex-husband recruited men through the Telegram messaging app. A German investigation has since found group chats accommodating 70,000 members worldwide who shared explicit advice on how to sexually assault someone. Telegram groups use encrypted messaging services, which make tracking down culprits challenging for local authorities.
This case shocked the world, especially upon learning how Dominique Pelicot was able to communicate with so many dangerous men through an easily accessible messaging app. It begs the question as to how these platforms and group chats are not dismantled immediately – and whether the law is struggling to keep up with the ever-expanding nature of the internet.
The 2023 Online Safety Act attempted to tackle the growing issues the internet has posed to the safety of children and adults online. It requires companies and platforms to take action against illegal content, and to put in place systems for removing this illegal content when it appears. This includes content relating to the incitement of violence, extreme sexual violence, and terrorism, all of which would assist in combatting online radicalization and tackling extremist ideologies.
Despite the Online Safety Act’s positive goals to tackle this illegal content, enforcing companies to comply with this law proves a challenge. Telegram, as an example, has been criticized for its refusal to share user data with government agencies, and as a result has made the platform a web of illegal activity.
The future of online safety therefore proves to be a difficult area for the law to navigate; new offences such as the creation of sexually explicit deepfakes attempt to tackle violence online, yet take years to implement. By that time, many would have fallen into the web of online radicalisation or become victim to a crime that the law fails to regulate.
As real life becomes extensively blurred with online spheres, the law must adapt to a modern world dependent on the internet in order to better protect humanity, or else face the consequences of an unregulated digital world.
Edited by Connie Newstead
Image: Code Projected Over Woman, ThisIsEngineering, 2020// CC0
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