The Gamification of Terrorism

when i’m out for a run

i sometimes imagine the pedestrians

behind me as zombies

so that i run faster when i give a

speech in front of a large audience

i sometimes turn the people in front of

me into robots in my head so that i’m

less nervous

and when i come back to a flooded inbox

of emails after a long holiday

i usually reward myself for every 20th i

finish

most of us gamify our daily lives

whether consciously or unconsciously

to make situations less boring less

intimidating

or simply more fun gamification is the

art of putting game-like elements

into product services or situations that

are not games

employers use it to increase employee

motivation

you have interactive ranking systems

real-time progress bars

and achievement updates that give you an

incentive to perform better

uber drivers for example immediately see

their customer ratings and opportunities

to make more money

some of the drivers i spoke to even

became addicted to seeing their progress

bars go up

companies also exploit gamification

mechanisms to enhance customer loyalty

some members of frequent flyer programs

for example would even choose multi-city

trips over direct flights just so that

they can gain additional miles

and some mcdonald’s customers would even

buy an additional burger

just to have a higher chance of winning

the mcdonald’s monopoly

as early as 100 years ago kellogg’s

already put little games into its coin

flicks boxes

to create a more playful family

atmosphere today

entire business models are based upon

gamification

think about dating apps for example what

would tinder be without the fun swiping

mechanisms

we’re getting into more sensitive

territory when we enter gamification for

political gains

political campaigners and activists have

increasingly started to gamify their

campaigns

to steer votes into a certain direction

i have to say there are some of these

political games that i enjoy quite a bit

that involve particular politicians for

example

gamified approaches to business and

politics work

because they tap into our competitive

instincts and into our love for

entertainment

unfortunately gamification has also

become the favorite weapon used by

modern day extremists

for my book going dark the secret social

lives of extremists

i went undercover with a dozen different

extremist groups

across the ideological spectrum i spent

two years infiltrating

isis hacker groups female misogynist

channels

and the white nationalist networks that

radicalized the christchurch perpetrator

from jihadis to neo-nazis extremists

have become increasingly good

at exploiting gamification to their

advantage

they recruit young members using video

game like vetting procedures

they run communication campaigns using

military language

and promoting successful participants to

higher ranks in the community

and most recently they have even started

to gamify their acts of terrorism

some of them are better than advertising

firms and political campaigners

some violent extremist communities have

created entire online worlds

where they use their own vocabulary

hierarchies

and incentive systems one neo-nazi

trolling army i infiltrated

counted ten thousand foot soldiers that

were receiving daily orders from the

so-called supreme commander

to carry out hate attacks in march 2019

an australian far-right gunman killed

over 50 muslims in two consecutive

mosque attacks

he live streamed his attack using a

first-person ego shooter angle

and his so-called manifesto was littered

with gaming references

the first reply to his live stream post

was

is this a larp is this a live action

role play

and many of his fans in his community

then turned the video footage

into video game like versions where his

scores would go up and his ammunition

would go down with every muslim he shot

half a year later in hale germany

another far-right perpetrator even used

a 3d printer to print his own weapons

something that’s called weapons crafting

and gaming

i watched the members of these

communities where the perpetrators

radicalized from the inside

and it was shocking to see how many of

the members could no longer distinguish

between

what’s a game and what’s real the lines

between trolling and terrorism

between fiction and reality have become

increasingly blurry

video games turn into larps larps turn

into terrorist attacks

and terrorist attacks are turned back

into video games

sadly games are repeatable last year we

witnessed a series of attacks

from christchurch paul way el paso to

hale

which all followed a similar pattern one

mimicking the next one

there is a real threat that this has

become a competition for higher scores

in some channels extremists even discuss

beating the norwegian far-right

terrorist

andes breivik who killed 77 people in

2011

and is the undisputed winner of these

terrorist games

similar to the wave of isis-inspired

copycat attacks that we saw in 2016

we’re now seeing a new form of

inspirational terrorism

gamified terrorism the era of gamified

terrorism is not about video games per

se

clearly problematic video games exist

there is for example white power

modifications

of popular games such as counter-strike

where you can only shoot muslims blacks

or

chews while these kind of games can be

dangerous pathways into radicalization

i don’t think we should stop playing

video games altogether

and i would certainly not want to stop

using gamification

imagine how dull the coronavirus

lockdown would have been

without using games to escape reality

you can’t ban everything

neither from a practical perspective nor

from a freedom of speech perspective

the takedowns of harmful online

materials will always stay

a cat and mouse game and additionally

extremists

have become increasingly good at

camouflaging their extreme ideologies

often satirical content falls into a

legal gray zone

even when it’s used to spread racist

ideologies

there are nevertheless ways to reduce

the malevolent power that can come out

of gamification

in my research i saw how many members of

image boards such as 4chan

were frustrated because they felt that

these forums that were meant for

entertainment fun

and taboo breaking were hijacked by

extremists and turned into politicized

forums

maybe there is a way of reconquering

those gaming spaces

and reconverting them into what they

were originally designed for

fun to effectively counter the spread of

violent extremism

under the cloak of memes and games we

need better education programs that go

beyond teaching digital literacy

it’s important that young generations

are taught about

extremist subcultures and their

manipulation techniques

so they can spot the early warning signs

when they encounter them

moreover we need more online

intervention programs

that tap into some of these fringe

boards and messaging boards

there are plenty of successful offline

de-radicalization models

such as one-on-one mentoring programs

with trained psychologists and former

extremists

why not adapt some of these for the

darker online spaces

to end on a positive note i’m optimistic

for our future generations

if i wasn’t you wouldn’t see me with

this belly today

i would let my children play video games

and i would let their imagination as

much freedom as they need to develop a

creative mind

but i will tell them to be careful when

they notice that games turn political

and i will also warn them of the dangers

that can arise

from forgetting where a game ends and

where reality starts

you