Now, the search for acceptance online – the substitution of eye-to-eye contact and the human touch – has led to ripe recruiting fields for terrorist organizations. And children are the most targeted.
A 12-year-old French boy was convicted last August on two terror-related charges after he was found to have consumed large amounts of content produced by extremist groups.
For this young boy, the journey, as described by The Associated Press, began innocently enough with web searches about Islam after receiving a Quran from an aunt. Soon he was involved in encrypted chats, processing propaganda from Islamic State militants, studying bomb-making tutorials and instructional guides for torture.
Now the boy lives in a supervised setting away from his parents without access to social networks, with specialized educators, his parents with court-approved visitation rights.
“Children in particular are highly susceptible but even more so if they don’t have strong bonds of family, religious faith and good friendships,” Stella Mirabito, a former CIA analyst of media propaganda and now a media contributor and author, said on Washington Watch Wednesday.
“A lot of this has to do with the fact that they don’t have real-life relationships that are healthy and strong. We can go back to the issue of the family breakdown,” Mirabito told show host Tony Perkins.
The issue is complicated when children fail to develop critical thinking skills. “That fear, the threat of being ostracized, has a huge effect on how susceptible they are to other influences,” Mirabito said.
Counterterror investigators say the online radicalization of a child can take just months. Parents often miss the signs along the way.
Federal agencies across Europe are alarmed by the growing threat. Oliver Christen, France’s national anti-terrorism prosecutor, told AP that his office saw just two cases involving radicalized minors in 2022. A year later the number was 15, and last year it was 19.
For decades, terrorists were easier to track because they were in contact with the real world. Today they’re on a phone or laptop, online security measures like encrypted chats helping to keep their identities and activities secret.
Realistic, graphic and violent video games have become popular and “addictive,” Mirabito said, and research shows a connection between their consumption and subsequent aggressive behavior, aggressive ideas, arousal and anger, the Youth Violence Prevention Center at the University of Michigan found. The effects on children were profound.
“The importance of real-life relationships, I mean, their sense of loneliness is being weaponized by these bad influencers,” Mirabito said.
What parents should watch for
There are telling signs for parents who are trying to keep up. No. 1 is an obsession with social media, she explained.
“Parents who are connected and concerned will be able to detect this sort of detachment. What's really crazy is that you'll see a bunch of kids [who are] physically together, but every single one of them on their smartphone, and even texting one another, when they could just talk to them standing right next to them,” Mirabito said.
Beyond signs of detachment, parents need to know their kids’ friends. She urges them to be aware of new friends, of those “who aren’t connected that might draw them into a cult-like or gang-like situation.”
Parents should also be aware of what media their children are consuming. Mirabito mentioned Teen Vogue magazine in particular.
It launched in January of 2003 as a sister publication to Vogue magazine, targeting teenage girls and young women with subjects like fashion, beauty, culture and lifestyle. Since 2015 it has expanded its focus to include stories on news and politics.
“It is highly politicized and highly sexualized. If [your children] pick up a copy of that, your antenna should really go up. They even tell you who to vote for,” Mirabito stated.
Watch out for celebrities too, Mirabito suggests. Many of them are adept at getting out their message without relying on a certain media outlet.
“If a child gets really charmed by a particular celebrity who basically will tell them how to act or how to vote, all of those things, to the point that they can't really think on their own,” Mirabito said. “All of that relates to how they feel they are being viewed by others.”
The importance of companionship
Acceptance of others is important, a natural desire, Mirabito acknowledged, but one that should be tempered with proper relationships.
“We are hard-wired for companionship. We need strong relationships – a relationship with God, a relationship with family, with friends, companions in a healthy relationship so that we can interact in strong and effective ways,” she said.
Individuals who have those healthy relationships, she added, are supported and strengthened.
“That’s why tyrants have always targeted traditional religion, family and even friendship. Isolation and creating isolation is absolutely essential for tyranny and controlling what people think and what they do and what they say,” Mirabito concluded.
