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Extremists spreading hate via video-game chats

BBC Click has reported that extremists are using mainstream video games and gaming chat platforms to spread hate.

Over three months, researchers found anti-Semitism, racism and homophobia on platforms, including DLive and Odysee, where users stream and chat about games such as Call of Duty and Minecraft.

Although organisations such as Telegram have stressed that they use a ‘combination of proactive monitoring of public spaces and user reports’ to remove content breaching its terms of service, campaign organisations have warned that including extremist narratives among everyday conversations within the gaming world can be a pathway to radicalisation.

Such conversations then move to spaces such as private Telegram channels and that is when ‘the radicalisation starts to happen’.

The same researchers also found extremist ‘roleplay’ scenarios within games on various platforms that let players create and share their own custom maps and environments, including Nazi concentration camps and a Uyghur detainment camp in games such as Roblox and Minecraft.

Jacob Davey, from the Institute of Strategic Dialogue, said: “"The extreme right-wing have potentially found safe harbours to broadcast their ideology or to engage in more traditional propagandising - the sorts of things that they would have done a few years ago on Facebook, YouTube and Twitter.

"Online gaming basically forms a means for people to connect over a shared hobby online, and this includes extremists. It's a way for them to connect with like-minded individuals, to socialise and ultimately form firmer social bonds, which can be really important in terms of advancing and furthering extremist movements globally."

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