Social media just doesn’t have a problem when it comes to the far-right, video games have had their parallel problem with the toxic ideology that resides on the far-right end of the political spectrum as well.
However, it’s not like gamers for the very most part are inherently some racist chuds or ingrained with shitty opinions on the rest of the world. Like social media, far-right groups are using video games as a recruiting platform.
Back in January of this year, the Guardian published a piece entitled How far right uses video games and tech to lure and radicalise teenage recruits that highlighted how 17 kids in the United Kingdom — some as young as 14 were arrested on terrorism charges over the course of 18 months while a neo-Nazi group in Derby, UK emerged last year led by a 15-year old.
So how are kids as young as 14 getting entangled in far-right extremism?
Researchers for an initiative supported by the UN counter-terrorism executive directorate discovered that the online game platform and game creation system Roblox was being used by far-right extremists to make games that recreated acts of terrorism committed by the far-right. This included games that recreated such atrocities as Anders Breivik’s 2011 attack on the Norwegian island of Utoya, the 2019 mosque shootings in Christchurch, New Zealand, and the 2019 terrorist attack in El Paso, Texas.
Additionally, the UK white-nationalist group Patriotic Alternative has been looking to gain younger recruits by hosting Call of Duty Warcraft tournaments for their supporters.
But it’s not just the UK that’s having a growing problem with far-right indoctrination within video games.
To say the very least, the far-right’s efforts to embed its hateful ideology firmly within the gaming world have come a long way since Gamergate.
Within the United States, the boogaloo movement (which for some reason has endeared itself with some parts of the left) has begun to infiltrate Steam-linked Discord chatrooms as boogs attempt to “red pill” unsuspecting kids just looking to talk about the latest Resident Evil game. In 2018, NPR reported on a family in Colorado where the teenage son got himself mixed up with online white supremacists after engaging himself in Discord video game chatrooms.
Christian Picciolini a 47-year-old former neo-Nazi who founded the organization the “Free Radicals Project” which aims to prevent hateful ideology around the world discussed today’s recruitment methods of the far-right in conjunction with how he was originally brought into the neo-Nazi movement.
“They befriend young players,” passing along anti-Black and antisemitic memes, said Picciolini, who runs the Free Radicals Project, which seeks to de-radicalize extremists. “They do the same thing in depression forums and autism communities online. They find people looking for help and they invite them to chat, send them funny memes. Some kids see those memes and say, ‘Not cool’ and some giggle. Those who giggle get invited to private rooms.”
Washington Post
Critics of the notion that the far-right are using video games to recruit kids into their hateful movements will more than likely point to some of the mainstream, nonsensical outcry heard during the early 90s when Tipper Gore was waging war on the music industry over “obscene content” or the decade prior when the satanic panic was all the rage with the Christian right.
Likewise, though it’s not any secret that society, especially the United States has a problem with violence, and pointing a finger towards video games is a fair approach to take. Although it shouldn’t make up for shitty parenting or excusing the promotion of American jingoism via games like Medal of Honor, the far-right aspects hit differently.
In 2018, Pew discovered that more than eight in ten teens (84 percent) have access to a gaming console while 97 percent of teenage boys play video games on some kind of device comparable to a still overwhelming 83 percent of girls. If you’re a white supremacist looking to recruit, it’s not hard to identify that video games offer a trove of impressionable young minds to “red pill”, especially considering younger people in the United States, notably Gen Z are much more progressive in their politics and helping millennials replace boomers are beginning to die out.
So how does the left combat against this?
If you have kids, be vigilant. I don’t think any leftist should or would for that matter be afraid to address the problems we’re having today with the far-right and white supremacy. If you’re a parent and an organizer, bring your kids with you so they can also see other like-minded people like yourself.
And lastly, don’t advocate working with anyone on the far-right. Boogaloo Boys say a lot of shit that sounds appealing to leftwing circles but don’t fall for it. Because if you fall for the far-right bullshit, your kids won’t be far behind.
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