Youth Radicalisation and Harm in Online Networks

The following report describes the conclusions of two expert roundtable events held with practitioners and academics, focused on developing an understanding of the phenomenon commonly referred to as, “The COM” (also known as “com groups”, “com networks” and “community groups”; e.g., 764, NoLivesMatter, Manic Murder Cult, Order of 9 Angles).

According to the NCA, the COM is a, “Transnational Virtual Criminal Network (TVCN) which promotes, advocates, and engages in a broad spectrum of criminal activity including cybercrime, crimes against children, animal torture, and ideologically-motivated violent extremism.”

Given the considerations described in this report and the need for a multi-agency response, we suggest including the following elements in a multi-agency definition going forwards:

“The COM are competitive, sadistic, and exploitative online networks in which
members achieve status and social capital gains for the perpetration or
incitement of violence, degrading acts, self-harm, and/or cybercrime, and the
associated generation and sharing of extreme content (including terrorismrelated material, and content depicting child sexual abuse, self-harm, and animal cruelty).”

While these groups are highly organised, they are also highly diverse and decentralised, and resist categorisation in terms of a unifying ideology or single type of offence. This report is intended to provide an initial but well-specified foundation for developing a multi-agency agreed definition, and setting an agenda for academic research.

We present a description in terms of who is affected, types of behaviours in which group members engage, and the collective behaviours that typically characterise these groups. We describe practitioner and academic perceptions of the typical motivations and pathways for engagement with com groups, as well as how these groups maintain adherence and structure, and how members might potentially disengage. We also identify insights into these processes based on academic research from analogue contexts.

Finally, this report also provides a discussion of the ambiguities and key research questions emerging from the roundtable discussions. We highlight important gaps researchers should aim to fill in the coming months.