Uploaded March 2023 | Updated September 2026, 1 week ago

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RACHEL KOWERT (she/her) Research Director, Take This

There is growing concern that gaming spaces are particularly vulnerable to online radicalization. This talk will provide a broad overview of what we currently know about the state of radicalization and recruitment in games and discuss the identity and community mechanisms that are actively being leveraged by extremists in gaming spaces for the dissemination of propaganda, radicalization, and recruitment. This will include a discussion of community factors and narrative design. Several suggestions for how to better address this problem within games and platforms will also be given, including a discussion of current ineffective content moderation strategies. This talk will highlight that this is not a single platform or game issue and discuss why cross-platform and cross-developer collaboration is essential to be more proactive in addressing the presence of bad actors within communities.

Talk is a collaboration with Alex Newhouse.