Teenagers being indoctrinated into neo-Nazism by their peers, new report says
Teenagers are being indoctrinated into neo-Nazism by their peers, a new report says.
The study, produced by the International Centre for the Study of Radicalisation & Political Violence (ICSR) at Kings College London and the CST, found that in looking at the growth of ten neo-Nazi youth movements, the radicalisation into the racist ideology was being enacted from teenagers to fellow teenagers, as opposed to older members to younger ones, a perception that the study dismissed as largely a myth.
The report states: “With very limited exceptions, all groups in the sample demonstrate antisemitic beliefs, demonising the Jewish community and often depicting them as the root of various problems. This includes promoting antisemitic conspiracy theories and occasionally inciting violence against the Jewish community. Islamophobia and xenophobia are also common.”
Discussing what the report, titled “We Are Generation Terror!”, termed “youth-on-youth radicalisation”, the report’s author Hannah Rose said: “Young people are both vulnerable to online grooming through manipulation by seasoned extreme-right extremists and, increasingly they are themselves the groomers, the propagandists, the recruiters and the plotters, and the convicted perpetrators.”
The report also found that social media platforms’ restrictions on racist content, namely Instagram, Twitter, TikTok and Telegram, were being easily bypassed.
Campaign Against Antisemitism recently produced a series of posts highlighting TikTok’s problem of allowing content that promoted Holocaust denial.
In July, we reported that according to a new study, antisemitic content on the social media platform TikTok had increased by 912%. According to research from Dr Gabriel Weimann of the University of Haifa and Natalie Masri of IDC Herzliya’s Institute for Counter-Terrorism, antisemitic comments on TikTok grew 912% from 41 in 2020 to 415 in 2021, and the platform saw 61 antisemitic postings so far this year compared to 43 last year. Antisemitic tropes and images that were used in video content included Nazi salutes, diminishing the impact of the Holocaust, and propagating caricatures of Jews with long, hooked noses.
Campaign Against Antisemitism has been monitoring and acting against the threat from the far-right for years, continues to urge the Jewish community to remain vigilant and welcomes the seriousness with which the authorities are treating the danger.
Campaign Against Antisemitism has launched a new weekly podcast. New episodes of Podcast Against Antisemitism are available every Thursday and can be streamed here or downloaded wherever you get your podcasts.
