- Feb 2023
-
h.diplomacy.edu h.diplomacy.edu
-
TITLE: Extremists use social media to lure to women and girls into (online) extremism
CONTENT: The European Commission’s Radicalisation Awareness Network Practitioners (RAN Practitioners) network published a paper which explores narratives and strategies used by right-wing and Islamist extremist actors to persuade and recruit young women and girls into violent extremism. Especially due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Preventing and Countering Violent Extremism (P/CVE) programs struggled to maintain access to their target groups, especially in offline spaces. The document notes that digital platforms have not been used enough to reach out to girls and women in a strategic manner. On the contrary, the perpetrators took better advantage of social media in approaching and recruiting young women and girls. The paper looks into their tactics and young women and girls’s vulnerabilities. Vulnerabilities the perpetrators take advantage of include, but are not limited to, discrimination young women and girls experience online and offline, desire to belong to a sisterhood-like group, and other issues related to understanding sexuality and other insecurities. While misogynist narratives are on the rise over the past several years and women are being targeted with defamatory hate speech and anti-feminist discussion online, in parallel right-wing extremism (RWE) groups, such as neo-Nazi organisations and identitarian organizations, strategically engage in producing content and using specific hashtags with the aim of persuading girls and women into online extremism. It particularly looks into online platforms such as YouTube, Facebook and Telegram. The paper offers recommendations for preventing and countering extremists’ online targeting of girls and women.
EXCERPT: The European Commission’s Radicalisation Awareness Network Practitioners (RAN Practitioners) network paper explores narratives and strategies used by extremist actors to persuade and recruit young women and girls into violent extremism. Perpetrators take advantage of their insecurities and vulnerabilities to lure them into online extremism.
TOPIC: Violent extremism, Gender rights online
TREND: n/a
DATE: February 25, 2022
COUNTRY: Global
-