The Online Risks of Radicalisation for Young People
The Online Risks of Radicalisation for Young People
The overwhelming majority of radicalisation now takes place online, making it a vital component of online safety.
The internet is exploited by extremists to spread their ideology, hate, fake news, and conspiracy theories. These groups actively target and groom children and young people for recruitment and manipulation. Extremists know that many young people have unsupervised and unmonitored access to the internet, social media, games and apps through their phones, devices and gaming consoles, and that they are using the internet much more, and often alone, which provides opportunities for influence, content sharing and communication.
A common approach used by extremists is to spread misinformation and fake news to generate anger and outrage, often skewing current affairs and topical issues to play on our emotions, deeply held beliefs and values. Often, posts from extremist organisations use patriotism, support for popular causes, fear-mongering, grievances and idealistic or shocking imagery in formats such as social media memes, videos, audio clips and images which act as a gateway into more overtly hateful and divisive content distributed through closed groups and private online conversations.
Extremists also take advantage of vulnerabilities such as the social isolation, anxiety, low self-esteem and troubled home lives that many children and young people experience. Vulnerable people may be targeted through the offer of opportunities to become part of a network of like-minded people and offer a sense of belonging, friendship and acceptance that susceptible people may be lacking in their
everyday lives.
This list shows what those being targeted for radicalisation may be offered.
- Friendship and someone to talk to who listens and understands them.
- Gifts, money and online gaming tokens and currency.
- Access to participate in fun events such as gaming tournaments.
- A feeling of being accepted where they may feel isolated in their offline life.
- Membership of closed groups through apps such as WhatsApp, Telegram and Discord
- The opportunity to discuss current affairs, injustices and grievances.
- To meet in person and attend face-to-face events, marches and rallies.
Teaching our children not to fall for these ploys is one of the most important things we can do
to protect them from online grooming by extremists.
Warning Signs that Someone is Being Radicalised Online
- Isolation and withdrawal from family and friends.
- Increased secrecy about their online activity.
- Spending excessive amounts of time online.
- Particular interest in certain news topics or conspiracy theories and expressing strong views about these subjects.
- New online friends that appear to be influential.
- Negative views about certain groups within the community, possibly including violent sentiments towards them.
- Sympathies towards certain ideologies and admiration for figureheads within these organisations.
- Joining closed groups on apps such as WhatsApp, Telegram and Discord following conversations with “friends” online.
- Internet searches that indicate an interest in an ideology, violence (e.g. gore videos), and/or chemicals and explosives.
Developing your pupils’ critical thinking about online content
Extremist organisations rely on people becoming drawn in to consuming their content and pursuing further information or engaging in conversation about it. Disinformation or “fake news”, misinformation and propaganda is everywhere and the accessibility and ease of distribution of this content is alarming.
Support your pupils to develop critical thinking and fact-checking skills when looking at content and media online to discern if they are based in truth or have come from untrustworthy sources.
Fact Checking
Encourage pupils to critically evaluate content they see online:
- Is it from a reputable and trustworthy website or author?
- What are the problems with content shared through social
media platforms? - Can the information be verified through other sources?
- Is the information based in fact or opinion?
- Does the author have any bias or motive in posting this
article? - Has the information been distorted, exaggerated,
sensationalised, or even made up?
Helping pupils understand fake news
Talk through fake news with your students with the fantastic teaching resources on BBC Teach and Teacher Guide to support students with fact checking.
Watch the following BBC Teach rap with your pupils to understand the science behind how fake news grabs your attention:
Full Fact Website
A useful tool for fact checking topical news headlines, statements made by politicians and public figures, and national issues and events around crime, health, education and the economy.
BBC Bitesize Fake News Quiz
Can your students spot which news stories are true and which are
fake news?
Internet Matters Fake News Quiz
Age-differentiated quizzes to support children’s critical thinking
around fake news, clickbait, reliable sources and author motivations.
Technology can now be used to create images, audio clips and video of seemingly real people saying and doing things they never said or did. Deep fakes are so realistic that they can be incredibly difficult to detect. This, coupled with the ease of sharing and re-sharing, can mean that once this deep fake content has been released it cannot be easily removed and it can have a wide-ranging influence from public opinion and politics to business and personal lives.
Try this Google reverse image search activity with your students:
Creating Safe Spaces To Talk Offline
A crucial part of teaching pupils to stay safe online and develop their critical thinking skills in relation to online content is through schools and parents encouraging, allowing and facilitating open dialogue about topical issues, giving young people the opportunity to express their views and discuss content that they have seen in a supportive environment.
When young people are discouraged or banned from talking about controversial issues or views that they or others hold, their interest and curiosity about the subject doesn’t go away, though without safe space to discuss and explore these issues further they can become isolated, leading them to seek their own information from the online space.
See the below links to websites that can support these conversations around difficult subjects.
Solutions not Sides
This website offers lots of online guidance and assembly kits to aid teachers in understanding how to talk about the Israel-Palestine conflict and the antisemitism and Islamophobia that has surfaced as a result. They also offer workshops for young people that can be booked for schools.
Facing History
Partnered with Solutions Not Sides, Facing History can aid secondary schools in facilitating difficult conversations in classrooms, looking at identity and empathy on both sides of the conflict through use of video and film media.
Votes for Schools: Misogyny and Andrew Tate
How to talk to young people in KS3 and KS4 about the rise in misogyny, particularly around the influencer Andrew Tate, as well as free Safer Internet Day lesson packs, assemblies and resources.
Digital Matters: Managing Online Information
Digital Matters, created by Internet Matters, is a platform which uses quiz-style and story-based learning while promoting discussion in the classroom to promote a safer internet.
The Managing Online Information module aims for Year 5 and Year 6 pupils to explore the differences between belief, fact and opinion and look at reliable sources.
Be Internet Citizens
Be Internet Citizens is an educational programme developed by the Institute of Strategic Dialogue and YouTube, designed to build young people’s digital citizenship skills. The PSHE Association-accredited Unit of Work covers five lessons for secondary school pupils, spanning a range of topics. The lessons aim to build young people’s critical thinking skills whilst developing their resilience to hate and extremism through a range of engaging exercises. The resources included are a series of lesson plans and the accompanying PowerPoint Presentation.
Managing Feelings about the News
A lesson plan and teaching resources available through The Guardian to help young people analyse and manage their feelings about difficult issues that they see in the news.
Stand Up! Discrimination Today and Yesterday
A classroom resource which aims to explore issues around discrimination and tolerance. The resource focuses on antisemitism and anti-Muslim hatred. Teachers may use this resource to teach about discrimination, antisemitism and anti-Muslim hatred historically and in Britain today.
Be Internet Legends
Resources to aid children to be safer and more confident users of the online space.
More information:
How to report concerns, identifying vulnerability factors, news, documents and resources
At last there is someone I can talk to
We recommend monitoring food packaging/wrappers, looking for wording such as CBD or THC suggesting the items are cannabis oil infused. (See image right)
