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Far-right extremists using games platforms to radicalise teenagers, report warns
(www.theguardian.com)
this post was submitted on 01 Aug 2025
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I think we are giving them far too much credit. The article is written as if they are deliberately and systematically recruiting young teens. The reality is that these kids are looking for the unmodderated spaces where these sickos dwell. These kids arent stupid, they know that the content they see is filtered and when we dont talk to them about why and just tell them "because its bad" they go out and find the content themselves.
From that point its pretty much a flip of a coin. They are either disgusted at what they find or the look for more, THEN yes they will find the sick people and befriend them due to similar interests in gore, beheadings, r*pe, suicide etc. This sends them down the undesirable rabbit hole.
This is all because parents are too lazy or afraid to communicate with children and teens about these serious topics. But will instead allow them to reicieve moral guidence from a incel living in his mothers basement regularly masturbating to this foul content.
Ive litterally watched this happen and attempted to stop/ get these kids banned. But these teens genuinely think they know better and sometimes the mods themselves are sickos or children that think its okay to have shared spaces for people under and above 18. Minecraft(java), VR chat, Rust, any mmo, roblox, gmod, gta, tf2 im sure there are 1000s more. all games with minimal modderation. Kids and teens should just be banned from social media and social gaming. they only serve to harm themselves and the unmodderated safe spaces for adults to fuck around.
Disagree on the second part, more like limited, or better - separated. There's no harm in playing games with friends or strangers, as long as there's actual moderation or it's just a chill community.
I don't think it's the fault of those games themselves, but the trends in videogame development and support (extracting as much money as possible with little support). And also there's barely any enforcement when it comes to age ratings so it's a double whammy.
You're right, the devs arent going to put millions into modderating, it wouldnt be profitable so its definitely not on them sorry if i implied that. I genuinely believe kids would be better off gone regardless. There are probably "chill" communities out there but Its still dangerous because you have to trust every single user to not be a creep. I just think as idividual adult communities we need to just kick these kids out of servers, discord channels, twitch chats Etc. And imo label anyone who thinks that its okay for kids to be in these spaces weirdos.