US EditionThousands Of Terrorist Links Pulled From Gaming Sites
Europol removed over 6,500 links to jihadist, right-wing extremist, and racist content on gaming platforms used to recruit minors and spread violent propaganda.
- On November 13, Europol's Internet Referral Unit carried out a sweep of gaming and gaming-adjacent platforms, referring 5,408 jihadist, 1,070 violent right-wing, and 105 racist extremist links.
- Europol says gaming spaces are misused because extremists target minors and young adults using streaming platforms for recruitment and grooming tactics.
- Platform sweeps found illicit content across streaming platforms, in-game chat and voice comms, video‑on‑demand services, and community and hybrid platforms, with perpetrators recording and spreading edited extremist material.
- Europol's referrals often trigger platform or national removals, recently leading to the removal of racist and xenophobic propaganda under the European Union Terrorist Content Online rule.
- Looking ahead, expanded remit and new tech pose challenges because the IRU reviews content across more than a hundred platforms annually and assessed more than 16,000 items in 2023, while extremists use generative‑AI and cryptocurrencies.
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Action against extremists using gaming platforms
The use of generative-AI to create and disseminate propaganda and hate speech has reached unprecedented levels, especially in the right-wing scene. Terrorists interconnect with a growing variety of online communities recruiting minors and young adults to perform extreme violent acts, Europol says in its report on terrorism and trends for 2025. The organisation announced that it recently has identified and removed racist and xenophobic propaganda…
PET and the Police Online Patrol have found material about terrorist attacks in links on gaming platforms.
“It led to the reference of thousands of URLs that led to dangerous and illicit online material,” he said to Europol in communication, referring to the initiative to combat online radicalisation. The result includes 5,408 links for jiyahadista content, 1,070 for violent content of extreme-right and terrorist and 105 links for racist and xenophobic content. “This joint action highlights the complexity of combating terrorist, racist and xenophobic…
Europol has supported eight European countries in identifying and removing racist, xenophobic and terrorist content on online gaming platforms and related streaming platforms, Europol announced today. In a special operation on 13 November, Europol's task force reported thousands of URLs that led to dangerous material.
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- 50% of the sources lean Left, 50% of the sources are Center
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