On 11 March 2020, the World Health Organization (WHO) declared the newly discovered coronavirus disease (COVID-19) to be a pandemic. COVID-19 has upended virtually every aspect of life around the world. One of the immediate implications of the pandemic was a significant increase in the amount of time individuals spent online. It will take some time to fully realise the effects of this spike in activity. But it was immediately evident that radicalisation to violent extremism (RVE) could be effected. In the western world, the online milieu now dominates recruitment efforts, and online platforms have become central to the mobilisation of extremist groups. Engagement in forums affords extremist groups the opportunity to bring adherents, fence-sitters, or the merely curious further into the fold and increase radicalisation. The purpose of this study was to present the results of preliminary analyses of how the pandemic influenced posting behaviour across a range of extremist platforms.
The Potential Effects of COVID-19 on Radicalisation to Violent Extremism – GNET (gnet-research.org)
