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The article explores Far Cry 5’s commentary on the rise of the radical right, domestic terrorism, and extremism in America. The game’s two primary modes for this narrative critique involve its use of Christian symbolism and its exploration of doomsday prepper culture. What emerges from this analysis is that Far Cry 5 provides a harrowing reckoning in the rise of extremist thought in this country and its ramifications, one that is a timely reflection of current American culture. In Far Cry 5, America becomes the next great empire poised to fall throughout the game and finally, in its tense final sequences, succumbs to nuclear annihilation.

ISIS and other international terrorist organizations rely on the Internet to disseminate their extremist rhetoric and to recruit people to their cause, particularly through popular online social media applications. Any meaningful counterterrorism strategy must, therefore, account for the ways in which terrorist organizations use the Internet to prey on young, manipulable minds who are drawn to radical ideas and propaganda and to the desire to serve a cause larger than themselves. This article outlines the ways in which extremist organizations use the Internet to ensnare new recruits, analyzes the implications of cyber-recruitment on existing counterterrorism techniques, and suggests ways in which the U.S. government can work with Internet service providers and other major cyber corporations to better address this growing threat.

Does the URL referral structure of websites lead users into ‘rabbit holes’ of unreliable content? Past work suggests algorithmic recommender systems on sites like YouTube lead users to view more unreliable content. However, websites without algorithmic recommender systems have financial and political motivations to influence the movement of users, potentially creating browsing rabbit holes. We address this gap using browser telemetry that captures referrals to a large sample of domains rated as reliable or unreliable information sources. Our results suggest the incentives for unreliable sites to retain and monetise users create rabbit holes. After landing on an unreliable site, users are very likely to be referred to another page on the site. Further, unreliable sites are better at retaining users than reliable sites. We find less support for political motivations. While reliable and unreliable sites are largely disconnected from one another, the probability of traveling from one unreliable site to another is relatively low. Our findings indicate the need for additional focus on site-level incentives to shape traffic moving through their sites.

In the past decade, people associated with what is known as the alt-right have employed a strategy similar to that of progressive, antiracist satirists to advance a decidedly white supremacist, anti-Semitic, misogynist, and deadly serious agenda. As this article documents, the alt-right weaponizes irony to attract and radicalize potential supporters, challenge progressive ideologies and institutions, redpill normies, and create a toxic counterpublic. Discussing examples of satiric irony generated by the extreme right alongside those produced by the (often mainstream) left, this article pairs two satirical memes, two activists’ use of irony, two ambiguously satirical tweets, and two recent controversies pertaining to racism and satire so as to illustrate how people with very different political commitments employ a similar style with potent effects. Of particular significance are reverse racism discourses, including “white genocide,” and the increasingly complicated relationship between intentions, extremism, and satire.

This thesis concerns the possibility of deceiving cyberterrorists using defensive deception methods. As cyberspace today is a battleground for myriad cyber attacks and intrusions, it may only be a matter of time before terrorists choose to advance their deadly cause in cyberspace. We explore some of the questions raised regarding the threat of cyberterrorism by examining different perspectives, motivations, actors, targets, and how they may be confronted. One way is to draw from the lessons of deception and apply them against cyberterrorist attacks. Cyber deception applies in cyberspace just as well as deception in military battles. From the different categories of attackers that could perpetrate cyberterrorism, we examine the ways in which they may be deceived. Many of the methods and tools that cyberterrorists would use are similar to those used by other less malicious hackers, so we can plan specific deceptions to use against them in advance.

The gaming ecosystem is increasingly observed with the concern that it could pose a threat to public safety, and research accumulates evidence for blatant extremism in the surrounding online space of games. Currently, a connection between gaming and extremism can be established through identity related processes, e.g., gaming-related radicalization elements, distal to gaming itself, such as gaming communities and culture. However, this also raises the question of what the precise function of proximal gaming factors, such as gameplay, mechanics, stories, or game-play motivations, is in the relationship between gaming and extremism. This article aims to shed light on the relation of gaming and extremism by identifying individual profiles of videogame playing based on gameplay motivations and linking them to indications of radical attitudes (here: xenophobia and violence acceptance) as well as conspiracy beliefs that can be associated with extremist beliefs. Further, we include marginalization and anomie as mediators to gain comparative and fine-grained information about the sole impact of gaming motives on radical attitudes. Our findings indicate that while few motivational profiles exhibit weak yet direct connections to radical attitudes, others display the opposite pattern, suggesting a more complex relationship. Marginalization and anomie strongly predict most radical outcome variables and mediate the relationship in most cases, however sometimes negatively. We only found one complex motivational profile that substantially leans toward late-stage radical attitudes, while for instance, dominant social motives clearly inhibit radical outcomes. The current study thus deflates any straightforward perspective on the becoming of a ‘radical gamer’.