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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.

There has been a long-standing yet largely unreported intersection between video-gaming and violent extremism, spanning across jihadist, far-right, and other types of ideologies. Within this framework, until late, scant attention has been paid to the concept of “gamification”; i.e. the application of gaming and game-design principles within non-gaming environments. This paper contributes to this newly emerging area of study by exploring the theoretical underpinnings of gamification and applying these principles to a prominent empirical example: the Christchurch attack in New Zealand in 2019. With a particular focus on the (“setup,” “rule,” and “progression”) “mechanics” of gamification, this article explores two aspects. The first considers how the assailant (intentionally or otherwise) designed and constructed the game; undertaken through an empirical analysis of their manifesto, live-stream video, and original post on the imageboard 8chan (or Infinite Chan). This will be complimented by the second aspect which explores how the game was, in turn, “gamified” through audience reaction to and interaction on the original 8chan post. The article concludes by discussing whether the gamification of the Christchurch attack serves as a framework for future attacks.

Through existing literature and open-source materials – including academic articles, research reports, policy documents, newspaper articles, investigative journalism, government inquiries and previous relevant Radicalisation Awareness Network (RAN) Policy Support (PS) deliverables, etc. – this paper will investigate the following key questions: what is gamification of (violent) extremism, what are the current and future threats it presents to the European Union (EU), and how can it be countered?

This paper provides an overview of the intersection between (violent) extremism and video gaming, examining the current landscape, trends, and threats. Analysing existing literature and open-source materials, this paper discusses the types of games, platforms, and services that are vulnerable to this type of infiltration and use; particularly focussing on content, platform features, and overlaps. The paper also examines a number of recurrent themes, including: ‘radicalisation, recruitment, and reinforcing views’; ‘community building and strengthening’; and ‘extremist online ecosystems’. Thereafter, the responses to (violent) extremism from various platforms will be explored, before reflecting on current challenges and future considerations.

Misinformation, as a tool that accelerates pathways of radicalization, requires an urgent response from both scholars and practitioners in education. In this chapter, we first examine a model of radicalization—the Educational Displacement and Replacement Model—to spotlight the distinct role that misinformation plays in enabling educationally displaced youth to embrace narratives of hate. By offering contemporary examples of misinforming narratives coupled with an illustration of the “scaling up” of a student’s personal grievances to associated (collective) grievances, we argue that misinformation serves as a form of building relationality among prospective “recruits” who face Educational Displacement. With this perspective of the connective role played by misinformation in linking the youth to movements fueled by narratives of hate, we conclude with evidence-based forms of pedagogic approaches, one of which is co-designed by the authors, to prevent radicalization via misinformation.

The advent of the World Wide Web created new digital worlds consisting of networked blogs, websites, chatrooms and forums for every topic under the sun (or in the shadows). An unintended side effect of such digital communities is that they have enabled individuals with extreme beliefs to find others to validate their grievances and encourage them to action. One of the largest and most notable of these communities is known as the ‘Manosphere’, an anti-women digital world that foments extreme misogyny, dehumanising women and, at its deepest levels, advocating for violence against all things feminist. This chapter will lay out the contours of the Manosphere and illuminate the major threats arising from this online space.