Contextual
Resources
Once a government or tech company develops a definition of terrorism or violent extremism, it can be difficult to know how to apply these definitions to the variety of ways that terrorism and violent extremism manifests internationally and across online spaces.
This section of the site aims to highlight contextual resources on themes related to applying definitions to the online space. GIFCT funds the Global Network on Extremism and Technology (GNET) to bring forward actionable insights from experts and practitioners around the world to better inform and give context to tech companies, governments, practitioners and other stakeholders in this field. Insights are curated here under context-based themes.
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Platform & Product Type/Focus
Gaming
Platform & Product Type/Focus
The internet is not a homogenous space. There is significant variation in what platforms or tools online do, and subsequently an equally significant variation in how a platform might be exploited and the signal available to a platform to detect such exploitation. Experts continue to track the different types of platforms and tools being exploited by terrorists and violent extremist, looking at how and why a group or individual might use a product. While some platforms are more global in usage, others are specific to trends in regions or particular types of violent extremist groups.
Gaming
Without establishing any causal connections between offline violence and gaming communities, recent research points towards video gaming communities as being vulnerable to extremist discourse. However, research highlights particular gaming platforms’ set of risks for offline harm, including the documented use of platforms by extremist and terrorist actors.
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28th October 2025Youth Radicalisation in the Gaming Sphere: An Exploration of Identity-Based Hate and Extremist Content on RobloxLinda Schlegel, Constantin Winkler and Lars Wiegold
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22nd September 2025Virtual Worlds, Real Threats: Violent Extremist Exploitation of Roblox and Wider Gaming EcosystemsTore Hamming
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08th September 2025Can Gaming Support Disengagement? Exploring Opportunities and Challenges for Innovative Disengagement ApproachesLinda Schlegel and Vivienne Ohlenforst
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26th August 2025Building Community, Spreading Hate: Extremism, Hate, and Arma 3Kye Allen
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02nd July 2025Playing with Hate: How Far-Right Extremists Use Minecraft to Gamify RadicalisationGagandeep
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16th January 2025From Soundtracks to Side Quests: How Terrorist and Extremist Games Use Mainstream Platforms to Evade Detection and Draw UsersGalen Englund and Emily Thompson
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16th August 2023Meta Terror?: The Threats and Challenges of the MetaverseDr. Gabriel Weimann
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06th February 2023God of Race War: The Utilisation of Viking-Themed Video Games in Far-Right PropagandaAshton Kingdon
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24th October 2022Extreme Right Radicalisation of Children via Online Gaming PlatformsDr. Daniel Koehler, Irina Jugl and Verena Fiebig