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