Sadistic online networks recruit children into violence and extortion

Three teenagers were charged under Denmark’s terrorism provision on Monday over an alleged plan to attack Hadsten School south of Randers, DR reports. The case may be linked to sadistic, violence-focused networks known collectively as nihilistic violent extremism, or NVE.

At a preliminary court hearing, it emerged that the three suspects had been in contact on Discord and Telegram.

NVE covers a range of fluid groups, including The Community, also known as The Com, and 764. These internet cults pressure vulnerable children and young people to carry out extreme acts.

Self-harm, torture, the killing of pets, violent attacks, sexual abuse, murder and suicide are live-streamed in online chat groups, according to the article. The people carrying out the blackmail are often other children and young people, a phenomenon also known as youth-on-youth crime.

Children recruit other children

Katrine K. Pedersen, a PhD fellow at the University of Copenhagen who researches digital youth culture, says children younger than 10 are also exposed to these groups.

She says the groups use a form of ideological grooming on open, mainstream social media. Children first join a community and culture that can lead them into more closed online spaces.

Pedersen compares this with children wanting to play with others and be part of a community, making them more vulnerable to being drawn into the groups.

Joining can come with blackmail or a contract, she says. This can turn a child into both a victim and someone expected to provide violent content for closed groups.

There are examples of victims being recruited through gaming platforms such as Roblox, Pedersen says. Children invite other children into the groups.

A smartphone can provide access

Although NVE communities are a relatively new and little-known phenomenon, Danish children are as exposed as children elsewhere, according to Pedersen.

“As soon as you have a smartphone and a connection, you have access to these kinds of communities,” she says.

Pedersen stresses that parents should not automatically fear that their children will enter such environments simply because they have a smartphone. But she describes the networks as a disturbing side of online life.