EXPERT: Cynthia Miller-Idriss
Founding Director of Polarization Extremism Research Innovation Lab (PERIL). She is well-known for her research on far-right movements and how they attract and radicalise young individuals.
She says children as young as eight are being groomed into radical movements. The internet has streamlined the radicalisation process through creating an online ecosystem of hate. Creators of extremist content find ways to manipulate the algorithms and evade security measures. Recruitment into extremism is no longer organised, but spread via memes and ‘edgy’ counter-cultural jokes. She argues that this is new territory in counter-extremism work which cannot be addressed through securitisation measures. She calls for efforts to increase resilience to extremist messaging and to bolster mainstream narratives, and identifies the importance of developing preventative measures by reducing people’s susceptibility to extreme messaging. She talks about polarisation and how this led to the attacks on the Capitol on January 6th 2020.