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This paper introduces the concept of “imagined extremist communities,” a term that encapsulates the unique social landscape where right-wing lone actors, despite not being affiliated with organised groups, partake in a form of communal interaction. By examining the cases of Anders Behring Breivik, Brenton Harrison Tarrant, and Philip Manshaus, this paper illuminates how group-based and lone actors are more alike than what is conventionally expressed in existing research. Although lone actors are not subject to an external command like group-based actors are, the imagined extremist community functions as a “group” for lone actors and is, for all practical purposes, a corresponding alternative to a terror cell. During the radicalisation process, these individuals seek and turn to the imagined extremist community, enabling them to form a sense of belonging and identification and underscoring that these actors, although conventionally labelled as “lone,” are immersed in an alternative culture that nurtures their ideas and sustains their extremist ideology. This becomes particularly evident through their cognitive radicalisation, a process amplified by their psychological predispositions. The concept of the imagined extremist community elucidates how lone actors, especially those embracing right-wing ideologies, are subject to radical influences. Their conservative traits and psychological dispositions make them particularly receptive to the appeal of such communities.

From early Bulletin Board Systems adopted by neo-Nazis to the Islamic State’s more recent prolific use of social media platforms, an aspect of terrorism studies that is generally agreed upon is that violent extremists are often early adopters of emerging technologies. These groups, organisations, and networks have demonstrated innovative uses of these digital spaces, harnessed for recruitment, coordination, community building, attack planning, propaganda dissemination, and other purposes. Alongside studying these phenomena, it is important to explore where future trends lie; particularly as findings and recommendations can ensure that relevant stakeholders are aware of and can begin to prepare for emerging threats. This paper considers the potential exploitation of Web 3.0, specifically the metaverse, by violent extremists and explores conceivable opportunities to undertake nefarious activities within these spaces. There is a particular focus on the gamification of violent extremism in the metaverse, an issue—i.e. the gamification of violent extremism—that is causing increasing concern to terrorism practitioners more generally. Although it is difficult to predict exactly how violent extremists will utilise, exploit, and misuse the metaverse and related technologies due to the early stage of its conceptualisation and development, it is possible to develop hypotheses based on past trends and current examples demonstrating manipulation of online spaces that resemble aspects of the metaverse. In fact, aspects of the gamification of violent extremism in the metaverse may well have distinct overlaps with current threats, but simply utilise emerging technologies and take place within developing and more immersive online spaces.

The metaverse is currently the leading hype in the digital world because of its seemingly infinite potential and possibilities. Large corporations are drawn to the metaverse because it appears as the cutting edge of digital and technological developments. The metaverse is presented by communication technology companies as the next Internet, a leap towards a universe of boundless, interconnected virtual communities. However, there are many potential risks and challenges that the metaverse raises, including technical, legal, security, business, tax, privacy, security, and users’ well-being and safety (among many others). Cyber-savvy terrorists have been highly resourceful in adapting and applying online platforms and have taken advantage of every new development, platform, and application. Based on their past record, it is reasonable to assume that the metaverse is a new dimension that terrorists and violent extremists are poised to study, examine, and possibly utilise. This research note explores some potential uses of the metaverse by terrorists and suggests preemptive measures to minimise the risks of them doing so. If the advancement of the metaverse or similar developments is inevitable, we should consider risks and abuses and think more carefully about them when moving forward.

The United States is facing an ongoing threat of political violence due to widespread anti-government sentiment that has proliferated across social media platforms. Most saliently, these violent sentiments manifested in the January 6, 2021, attack on the US Capitol during the certification of the 2020 general election. This research extends prior work on the online mobilisation to offline violence by analysing the text of online discussions leading up to the January 6 attack. We focus this examination on two central questions. First, what are the key themes and topics discussed within and across two social media platforms? Second, how did these themes and topics change over time? Focusing on two far-right anti-government online communities, we explore how support for political violence, disinformation, and electoral outcomes emerge and change over time. Our findings provide insight into possible strategies to counteract misinformation and the temporal trajectory of escalating violent sentiment within and across online communities. Further, this study highlights the importance of collecting data prospectively and demonstrates the value of automated content analysis and text data in understanding anti-government extremist sentiments.

Social media platforms have become a prominent feature in modern-day communication, allowing users to express opinion and communicate with friends and likeminded individuals. However, with this revolutionary form of communication comes risks of exploitation and utilisation of these platforms for potentially illegal and harmful means. This article aims to explore the community guidelines and policies of prominent social media sites regarding extremist material, comparing the platform’s policies with the user experiences. To measure social media user experience and user exposure to extremist material, this article pilots the use of a new scale: The Online Extremism Exposure Scale (OECE), which measures both the user’s exposure to extremist communication and hate speech online. Users reported varied levels of exposure to both hate speech and extremist communication, with. the results indicating that users in the sample are being exposed to extremist material approximately 48.44% of the time they spend on social media daily. The results of this pilot study highlight potential failings by prominent social media platforms in their efforts to reduce users being exposed to extremist material. Limitations, future research, and implications are discussed in detail.

Leakage is one of the eight warning behaviors referred to in the violence risk and threat assessment literature. Previous research has highlighted the relevance and prevalence of leakage in lone-actor terrorists; however, a more detailed understanding of this phenomenon is lacking. This study sets out to expand our knowledge of this behavior by conducting an exploratory analysis using court records relating to IS-inspired lone-actor terrorism cases in the United States. The general patterns in leakage warning behavior were analyzed, and different types of leakage were examined with regard to from whom they were leaked, how they were leaked, their presence online, and whether or not they occurred before certain types of attacks more than others. It was found that leakage in the form of support tended to be leaked most frequently to members of the public, via written text and online, whilst the leakage of intent and specifics appeared to be more regularly leaked to co-conspirators and through verbal communication that avoided the online world. Significant relationships were also found between leakage, FBI interaction and attack initiation, but no significant relationship was found between leakage and mental health. The implications of these findings are discussed.