RADICALIZATIONWhich is the Bigger Threat: Offline or Online Radicalization?
The Global Network on Extremism Technology (GNET) has just released a report which seeks answers to these questions: Are those radicalized offline or online more of a threat? Which group is harder to detect, more successful in completing attacks, and more lethal when they do so? Is the pattern different for youth versus older perpetrators and for men versus women?
The Global Network on Extremism Technology(GNET) has just released a reportwhich seeks answers to these questions: Are those radicalized offline or online more of a threat? Which group is harder to detect, more successful in completing attacks, and more lethal when they do so? Is the pattern different for youth versus older perpetrators and for men versus women?
After a thorough examination of the data, the report concludes that those radicalized offline are greater in number, more successful in completing attacks, and more deadly than those radicalized online.
Here is report’s Overview:
Governments, social media companies and the general public are becoming increasingly concerned about the threat of those who are radicalized online and turn to violent extremism. However, the evidence base for this concern is not fully formed. For instance, it is not yet clear if those who are being radicalized offline are still the greater threat. It is particularly important to explore this issue empirically, as large amounts of material resources from both the public and the private sectors may be redirected from offline to online initiatives. This report seeks to explore the differences in outcomes for those who have been primarily radicalized offline versus those radicalized online.
It does so by creating a new database with a novel coding system. The database contains information regarding every completed and most of the thwarted jihadist‐linked attacks in eight Western countries (Australia, Austria, Belgium, France, Germany, Spain, the United Kingdom and the United States) over a seven year period from 1 January 2014 to 1 January 2021. The database contains 245 completed or thwarted attacks by some 439 individuals. For every perpetrator, the database contains information on how they were radicalized (mostly online; mostly offline; both; “asocially” online; and unknown – see chart in methodology section for definitional breakdown). It also contains information on target type and location, outcome of attack (completed; thwarted), lethality of attack (deaths; injuries), lone/group factors, mode of attack (bomb; shooting; knife; and so on), terrorist organizational connections (inspired or orchestrated by IS or al‐Qaeda or another group), demographics of attackers (gender; age; education; ethnic origin; socio‐economic status; and so on).
