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Radicalization Through Gaming

17 0
16.03.2025

Online gaming retains a significant position in the entertainment industries that gained great attention and revenue from worldwide platforms and digital communities. The industry of online gaming is already valued at US$ 137.6 billion in 2023-2024, which is projected to touch US$ 349 billion by 2032. Multinational companies, tech giants, and state governments are now focusing on making it easier for the online gaming industry to bring in money and provide other economic benefits. However, it is important to remember that the platforms and channels used in this industry pose security risks to states and communities on a larger scale. Many of the most common threats from these kinds of platforms come in the form of radical propaganda, recruitment, getting young people to commit violent acts by offering money or other incentives, praising extremists for their great gaming skills, or using racist or abusive language towards certain groups. Most of these factors have historically been associated with extremist and terrorist groups, such as Al-Qaeda, the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), or other radical Islamist organisations.

Violent extremists, hate-mongering actors, and terrorist facilitators or sympathisers exploit the spaces of online gaming through different techniques; the most common approach is the development of communities on platforms like “Discord,” one of the online communication platforms built for computer gamers or young tech experts. Similarly, extremist tendencies eventually influence online communities on console platforms like Xbox and PlayStation through their connections to Twitch or YouTube. In the past, one could analyse the fact that terrorist organisations like Al Qaeda used chat rooms for leading online........

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