UK: Misogynistic Online Contents Drive Young Male Population To Hunt Vulnerable Girls On Suicide Forums
London, UK: UK is on high alert. Reports of young men and boys drunk on “strongly misogynistic” online material hunting for vulnerable women and girls to exploit on websites such as eating disorder and suicide forums put the authorities on full alert. As per a media report, the threat from young men wanting to commit serious harm became so serious that the counter-terrorism officers are joining the National Crime Agency (NCA) in the hunt for them, fearing they could go on to attack or kill.
The new task force will also be looking out for the com networks (online communities), which counter-terrorism policing (CTP) and the NCA said involved hundreds of boys and young men. They will also hunt for those viewing material inciting sexual abuse.
Matt Jukes, Britain’s head of counter-terrorism said that a joint taskforce would be set up between his force and the NCA to tackle those fixated with violence online, in what he called a “decisive moment”, reported The Guardian. Jukes is the Metropolitan police force’s assistant commissioner for specialist operations.
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He also said that they would look for those consuming online material about killings or sexual abuse. Those who might go on to plot school shootings and other mass attacks, as well as those who encouraged women and girls to harm themselves, would also fall under their remit.
The decision to count on CTP and the NCA is being driven by the fear that it might be impossible to tell whether an obsession with violence and gore could turn into terrorism, a school massacre or other serious attack until it was too late, said the report.
Jukes, who is expected to be a candidate for the deputy commissionership of the Met, said that characteristics of such cases over the years look increasingly similar. He also added that the scale of such activities have gone beyond human intervention. “There are too many users, too much traffic”.
As per the report, com networks grew sixfold between 2022 and 2024 and are mainly young males joining together online to carry out hacking exercises and hunt for victims to steer into sexual abuse or worse.
“We think they’re mostly doing it for kudos, for notoriety … within their peer group online…In general, they are looking for victims who are already vulnerable. So they are looking at sort of suicidal ideation sites. They’re looking at eating disorders forums”, said James Babbage, the director general of threats for the NCA. He also added that com networks were believed to have hundreds of people in the UK alone.
Jukes said: “Young people who might have felt very isolated in some of their ideas and interests might never even have thought of some of the things which they’re now accessing … so people are getting both content and validation…We’re going to go after the com networks. We are going to go after those who appear to be administrating and facilitating them”, quoted The Guardian.
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He said that the internet has “turbocharged” material triggering resentment among some young men. He said such online gatherings are facilitating the idea that the interests of men and boys have been relegated, and the interests of women have been elevated, which often directly leads to violent misogyny.
The material driving the young males to view horrific material and to potentially offend “has a very significant dose of misogyny in it”, Babbage told the media outlet.
He said there were “technological and engineering” solutions to the crisis, and that big tech could help by stopping the algorithms pushing extreme content to young people who wanted it. They could also aid police in helping to detect young people searching for violent content.
