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Expert: 'Nihilistic violence' online is increasingly targeting youth, ISD analyst tells state task force
Summary
Catherine Canuli of the Institute for Strategic Dialogue told Washington's task force that online 'nihilistic' communities — including the true‑crime fandom and sextortion networks — are recruiting and radicalizing children as young as 8 and that analysts linked 34 of 41 law‑enforcement briefs last year to this phenomenon.
Catherine Canuli, director of threat analysis and prevention at the Institute for Strategic Dialogue (ISD), told the Domestic Extremism and Mass Violence Task Force that a growing set of online communities is driving youth‑targeted violence and exploitation.
"Last year, we submitted 41 briefs to law enforcement … 34 of those briefs sent to law enforcement were directly tied to nihilistic violence," Canuli said, arguing that the statistic shows how pervasive the problem has become and how often it involves youth. She defined "nihilistic violence" as violent acts and illegal activity driven by a misanthropic worldview rather than a political ideology: "Their goal is commit violence for violence's sake," she said.
Canuli described three tiers of online platforms in which these communities operate — mainstream platforms with broader moderation (for example, Instagram, TikTok), alternative…
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