This article discusses extremism in the United States as we close out 2020 and look to 2021. Security professionals can educate themselves on what extremist groups are out there and where the risks lie.
The Department of Justice announced that six men have been arrested and charged federally with conspiring to kidnap the Governor of Michigan, Gretchen Whitmer. According to a complaint, this group used operational security measures, including communicating by encrypted messaging platforms and used code words and phrases in an attempt to avoid detection by law enforcement.
Using memes as propaganda, employing sophisticated communication networks for both planning and recruiting, making use of both fringe and private online forums and organizing militias to inspire lone wolf actors for violent action have proven to become tried-and-true tactics by extremist online communities seeking to expand their influence in recent years.
According to the Network Contagion Research Institute (NCRI) report, presented by the Rutgers Miller Center for Community Protection and Resilience, Network-Enabled Anarchy: How Militant Anarcho-Socialist Networks Use Social Media to Spread Violence Against Political Opponents and Law Enforcement, militant and extremist groups have taken to social media and online forums to plant hateful, anti-Semitic and/or revolutionary ideas in the public eye, which are often disguised with humor or through using coded language.
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A new report, COVID-19, Conspiracy and Contagious Sedition: A Case Study on the Militia-Sphere, details how the Militia-sphere’s messaging has grown increasingly extreme as the pandemic has progressed, to the point of threatening and enacting violent attacks.
The rapid growth of extremist groups poses many challenges to enterprise security. How has social media and the Internet provided radical groups the means to spread their ideologies and what are the challenges with identifying and countering these groups?
The New York Police Department has formed the Racially and Ethnically Motivated Extremism (R.E.M.E) unit within the department’s intelligence division to fight homegrown far right extremism, domestic terrorism and organized hate groups.
Texas Governor Greg Abbott formed a Domestic Terrorism Task Force in the wake of the El Paso shooting to combat these hateful acts and extremism in the state.
The number of terrorism-related deaths fell for a second year in 2016, even though more countries in the West were affected as tactics shifted to lone-wolf attacks.
A social media campaign created by Rochester Institute of Technology students took top prize in a global challenge to counter terrorist propaganda online.