Lawfare Daily: “I’m angry that I exist”: Nihilistic Violent Extremism with Seamus Hughes and Jacob Ware

On Friday, March 6, Laugh Fair and Georgetown Law are bringing together leading scholars,

practitioners, and former government officials for installing updates to ECPA, a half-day event on what's broken with the statute and how to fix it. The event is free and open to the public, in person and online. Visit LaughFairMedia.org/ECPAEvent. So, they will trace the kind of ideological or radicalization pathway to an individual,

the meticulously study their tactics, targeting their acts of violence, and then they'll seek to copy them, or, you know, in the kind of crude online politics they'll seek to beat that our high school will beat that kill count. It's the Laugh Fair podcast. I'm Peter Beck, associate editor at Laugh Fair, with Laugh Fair contributing editor,

and senior research faculty member at the University of Nebraska at Omaha's National Counterterrorism Innovation Technology and Education Center, Shameless Hughes, and Jacob Blair, the co-author of God Guns and Siddisham. The ideology is almost a simple one, which is nothing matters on this, because the world is absolutely jacked up, and we can do whatever

we want, because it doesn't matter anymore. Nothing's going to change unless we do something, and if we do something, if it changes all the better, but if it doesn't, who cares? So, they were talking about the rise of cases classified by the FBI, as nihilistic violent extremism, or NBE, in the online terror group, 764.

So, Jacob, why don't we start with you, could you tell us a little bit about where this term

“nihilistic violent extremism is coming from, and how the FBI came up with it?”

The term nihilistic violent extremism, first appeared in court documents about a year ago,

March 2025, with regards to a case involving an individual by a name of Nikita Casup, who had murdered his parents and kind of embarked on a spree with the end goal of killing President Trump to start a race war. The language that the FBI uses, the definition they've used, is that NBE's are individuals who engage in criminal conduct within the United States and abroad, in furtherance of political, social or religious goals that drive primarily from a hatred of society

at large, and a desire to bring about its collapse by so-and-indiscriminate chaos, destruction, and social instability. Every time it seems to me and shame is can weigh in on this. It seems every time that an official at the FBI speaks publicly about this movement and about the cases they've got, the number seems to rise, so it's pretty clear that this is emerging as a major priority for them now. I think we see that in our cases as well on the non-government side.

Jacob is absolutely right. I mean, listen, you look at this evolution of the term. I would think of like the FBI director, Castro tell talked about some hundred active investigations, like a few

“a year ago. I think they're at 425 as of last week, and I think next week, it'll be 550, right?”

There's a two-fold thing happening at the same time. One is an increase or a rise of kind of largely online groups that are nihilistic in nature in terms of just want to watch the world burn and causes much chaos as humanly possible, and also a hesitation of still using the term domestic terrorism in this new administration, and so you kind of mix those all together and you see kind of a rise in cases. So this is not to say the numbers are clearly going up and there's cases

going up in their heinous cases of it, but it's also just a somewhat of a reflection of a new administration kind of working there where through new terminology and things like that, and also a bureau that's just trying to understand how to wrap their head around what the hell's going on on this, right? Like it is confusing, understandably so, to be, to look at a case of a fictional kid who's doing horrible things to another fifth year old kid in the name of nothingness,

right, in the name of doing it just to do it. And so law enforcement is really grappling with

“one, like how do we quantify this? And two is this kind of new and emerging or something different?”

Yeah, Shamus, could you elaborate on that a little bit and talk about the kind of past domestic terrorism classifications and how the bureau uses them? Yeah, so in the past, you know, domestic

terrorism is always a catch all-phrase. I mean, domestic terrorism in the, by the administration,

or even the previous Trump administration would encompass far-left extremism, far-right extremism, neo-nautzeism, anti-bortion, pro-abortion, environmental rights, like you name it, that would

of international terrorism, or foreign terrorism, or home-grown violence extremism, which would be kind of the traditional ISIS, Al-Qaeda, Al-Shaba, type of world, a bit. We have seen an

in Jacob's after the right, so this kind of first instance of showing up in legal documents was in

March of last year. And what we find now as you'll kind of trace the evolution of the, the uses of in legal terms is actually a very good way to understand the usage within the bureau.

“Is it sometimes means they're looking when they talk about nihilistic violence extremism?”

They might need me talking about someone who's trying to set a Tesla dealership on fire, because they were upset about Elon Musk and Doge. And then sometimes it may mean a member who is part of seven, six, four, or an online exploitation group. What I think if it's fair to say is you look at the kind of effort flow of it, nihilistic violence extremism, I think is largely now a placeholder of this idea of a seven, six, four, or a calm, or a true crime community type

of network. And then those other groups, whether it be far right, far left, would be into a different category now. Yeah, Jacob, in a recent piece for law fair, you talked about these two different groups of envies, nihilistic violence extremists, and they fall into the true crime community, and then more of the seven, six, fours. Could you talk about what those groups are, what the

individuals are involved, and that's sort of thing? Sure. Well, first, I would just echo

“what, shameless pointed out, which is I think the danger and opportunity with the term like envy”

is it is going to become a capsule, it is already becoming that way. So part of what I was trying to to get at in that law fair piece that came out, I think in December was was trying to assess how this term might actually address trends or themes or topics or groups actors that have been around since long before March 2025, in sales, school shooters, for example, I think those actually have a place in this in this space. I wrote there that there are two big categories in the E's,

one is the seven, six, four. I think that is the kind of category that's gotten more attention. This is a very strange, very chaotic, very cruel online network that combines

kind of elements of white supremacy, satanism, and true nihilism with basically ritualized

child sexual exploitation. And so the point is, as far as I can tell, is to identify vulnerable individuals, usually young people, often young girls, and try to coerce them into acts of sexually explicit self-harm, up to an including suicide, for the celebration and the enjoyment of members of the group. And so it's a really interesting kind of movement or or issue in part because, you know, shameless and I, we both come from the counterterrorism world. And so this is quite

upsetting, both personally, you know, emotionally, but also just kind of in terms of our categories, in terms of our bureaucracies, because this is also a child sexual abuse material issue. In fact, it might even primarily be a child sexual abuse material, not a counterterrorism issue. And so it is very confusing and upsetting. The other category and the one that I perhaps worry about more from a counterterrorism standpoint is what both you, Peter and Shema's mentioned, which is something

called the true crime community. And this is basically an online space and online culture that celebrates violent predecessors, school shooters, sometimes terrorists, lionises them, and, you know, in the extreme cases, seeks to replicate them. So they will, they will trace the kind of ideological or radicalization pathways of an individual, they'll meticulously study their tactics, targeting their acts of violence, and then they'll seek to copy them, or, you know, in the kind of crude

online politics they'll seek to beat their high school or beat their kill count. Some of the notorious incidents from this movement include the December 2024 abundant life,

“school shooting in Madison, Wisconsin. She has become a bit of an exemplar. I think I would say”

she's today with exception of the Columbine shooters. She's probably the most significant figure in the true crime community, obviously she died. And to your high school in Nashville, January 25, an unseation Catholic church shooting August 25 in Minneapolis and evergreen high schools,

think tank and do tank in the extreme of space, in October they identified 16 attacks or plots.

I think since the beginning of 2024, inspired by this true crime community, all targeting schools. And this was another point I tried to make in that law fair piece that you mentioned. The idea that the violence that we're seeing, the violent tip of the spear of the nihilistic

“violent extremist movement, has largely targeted schools. And that is, I think, a really important”

thing for us to consider from the law enforcement and the count of terrorism perspective as well. And Jacob might disagree with me on this, but, you know, I think they're targeting schools for two reasons. One is that's the age demographic rate of the shooters, right? So they're in the schools, they understand the schools and think they're bad. But probably more important than all of that is that a lot of these folks look at this and say, okay, if I commit a school shooting,

it's more likely to get as much publicity, much more publicity than if I committed a attack in a mall, right? Because it focuses on the most vulnerable of it. And there is a trolling aspect of this, right? So if you look at the kind of manifests of the school shooters, a lot of them will copy and paste the last guys manifesto, right? Or, and then you'll see ones that are completely kind of have disparate ideological beliefs, right? So in one sentence they'll talk about how important gun

rates are and the second one, they'll talk about how everyone should have their other guns taken away.

And some of that is just an entirely set up to upset the system, right? In order to get the right and the left on X or blue sky or whatever to say, oh, that's your guy, it's not our guy because it's seen that page of that manifesto. And this is your problem you need to figure it out. It's trying to get as much energy and eyeballs on it, right? And so, you know, this idea the Jake talked about, like running up the score, it's a level of kind of trying an infinity,

but also just a general online trolling aspect taken to the worst possible extreme. So a bit on that note is there an ideological cohesion to it all, or is it just kind of this hodgepodge and the people who are doing it, I know that you mentioned that they were younger,

but is there any kind of other based on factor that brings people together?

Maybe this could be a plot where Jake and I would disagree. I don't know. We actually haven't

“talked about this yet. You know, for the most part, I think violence is the ideology, right?”

Um, or this idea of acceleration, it is them to the point of ruining society. Here's my caveat on this, is that, and I think we're seeing now is they may start with no ideology or violence being the ideology, but as they get farther and farther into the online space, they come across the latest, the the Turner Diaries, or, you know, whatever ISIS propaganda they look at, and they glam on to it at the end, right? Um, it's almost like they started the violence

and then end their way to ideology in some ways of it. And they're just kind of picking and choosing um, this, this, this, the ideology is is almost a simple one, which is nothing matters on this because the world is absolutely jacked up and we can do whatever we want because it doesn't matter anymore. Nothing's going to change unless we do something and if we do something, if it changes all the better, but if it doesn't, who cares, right? It's a level of extreme, it's the of it.

And it really kind of the, the lack of the ideology or the the coherent ideology, I guess, is what I would say makes it very difficult. You know, Jacob talked about this kind of bureaucratic buckets that we have into and that's true in academia, but it's absolutely true within law enforcement in the intelligence community, right? We've got a team that does a ISIS and they know to look for in Warlocky and and things like that. And we have a team that does, um, racially motivated by

extremism and they know to look for 88 and we have a team that does insels, they know for chats and stasis. And so if we, if you put our all our guys in these silos, when you're tracking a case of a 18 year old who's using kind of this community and they're pulling all of those things, you may not understand the 88's important and you might not understand that chat is important because you haven't been trained in spent the last 10 years studying that type of things.

The other aspect that's, that's problematic, too, is that, you know, a lot of these folks that are doing this are focusing on people that are under the age of 18 as victims, right? So, uh, exploitation of people as young as six or things like that. And so, we have folks to the folks that are investing in them are going to be counterterrorism professionals. Those counterterrorism professionals understand how to interview a 25-year-old who's thinking about blowing up a car bomb at them all

of America. They probably haven't been trained in how interview a six-year-old kid on the trauma and things that involve in that. So, it requires a level of resources and bringing in different folks into this data set into the end of this response in a way that counterterrorism has traditionally

“done. Just a couple of points in addition there, Petra, I don't think I disagree with anything. I think”

one of the, one of the things that's been interesting to me studying NVEs, I think they are in certain

terms of space. Some of those are easy, right? Online radicalization, that's clearly a play here. Youth radicalization is clearly a play here as a shameless was just talking about, a lot of the cases that we're dealing with are minus ideological convergence is a play, the concept

“of ideologies, blurring, becoming less important, groups becoming less important. We can talk”

about that a little bit more. The one I would just add on to that is the one that's very difficult to talk about, which is kind of the rise of mental illness in extremism and radicalization. And especially in this case, suicidality, most of the cases that we've seen here, especially the

violent cases, you know, the four eye discussed a second ago, right? They all ended in suicide.

And that is a major factor. And in the last question, Shamus was talking a bit about some of the reasons why schools are targeted. I would just add another one. Again, it was, it was part of what I've tried to argue when comparing NVES to school shooters and insels. Within the individual stories, you often see tales of isolation, loneliness, bullying, romantic frustration, violence in the home, sometimes substance abuse, and sometimes, you know, broader kind of mental mental illness.

Each of those things, especially the first points, isolation, loneliness, history being bullied, I think those lend themselves to school targeting as well, because much like, you know, the narratives from Virginia Tech, much like the narratives from Sandy Hook, you've all the right, the major school shootings in our country's history. These individuals are talking about revenge. They're talking about revenge against society, against those who wrong them, against those who excluded them,

including sexually. Much like the insels were much like school shooters always have. Those narratives

“are re-emerging here. And that's why I think it's important that we don't necessarily just reinvent”

the wheel in the counterterrorism space and think, "Oh, we've got this new term now. We can finally understand these movements." Instead, NVES, if anything, just giving a name to violence that we've always experienced, but have usually just kind of dismissed or degraded as meaningless. Right, now we don't think it's meaningless anymore, because now we have a term for it. But in fact, we've seen this story before. You know, it's a counterfactual, but it's interesting to think of,

you know, if we had a term like nihilistic violence, extremism at the time of the colon buying

shootings, which ended in suicide, Virginia Tech, which ended in suicide, Sandy Hook

would genit in suicide. It's interesting to think of whether we would consider those attacks back then as being nihilistic violence extremists. The last point I'll make here is the insels. They used to very eagerly kind of annoying their predecessors into their kind of pantheon of heroes. All right, they would say, "Oh, he was an insult. He was a hero." You know, the Sandy Hook shooter, for example, being a good example of somebody who was kind of posthumously brought into that

movement and celebrates as one of their own. And the NVES are doing that as well, chiefly with colon buying. But it's the same kind of concept of we recognize our predecessors, those who felt like we did, who acted like we did. We celebrate them. We tried to emulate them. And that is why we're seeing the violence at the schools I believe. So on the one hand, NVES seem like a threat to public safety and it's certainly a child exploitation, child safety concern. But on the other hand,

when we think about terrorism and we think about terrorist groups, they usually have an ideology, right? So even the Zizians who are a little bit more bizarre. It's a left-wing terror group who thinks that AI is going to inch humanity in there for they need to take accelerationist tactics.

“But NVES don't have an ideology. That's why their NVES. Why should they be considered”

terrorism? And why should a group like 764 be considered a terrorist group rather than a cold hellbent on violence or more of this child exploitation concern? The way we look at it is there's a level of pattern and structure to it that I don't think you can dismiss as just kind of a series of one-offs in there, right? And that take a group like 764, which has steps of joining. So you're in the lowest level. You commit a horrible act of violence against a child.

It goes into a law book, which then you use to get into the next level in the telegram channel and so on and so forth until you move up to the kind of leadership structure of it all. And so there's a command structure in this. I don't think you kind of dismiss it as a cold. You know, it's hard. You know, we ideally want to be able to pinpoint, okay, this is what they believe as an ideology and this is what they want to think of things.

political dynamics of it all. But in many ways, kind of overthrowing the government or

overthrowing society in general is a political means, right? So it falls into that category. I would also say that like in less you kind of categorized as that my concern of the US government level is that it would not be taken with a level of bigger that one needs to on that. So, you know, academics make quibble on it. But when you look at kind of the way the US government set up and the way the counterterrorism set up, like those categorizations

“actually do not equate that, there's also kind of the international dynamics of it all too, right?”

So it's not, this is not just happening in the US. You've got the rest that are happening in Europe and the Middle East and Australia and New Zealand and Canada, the Canadians and the New Zealand have designated as a terrorist organization. So we'll see how this plays out as it goes on. Peter, could I let your redesign on a secret? Professor Hughes was actually my professor of mine at Georgetown when I was a graduate. He taught a class called Homegrown Radicalization and terrorist

recruitment. I think, and in that week we had in that semester, I think we had at least two weeks looking at just radicalization theory. And my takeaway from those two weeks was, wow, we really don't have good radicalization theories because they all contradict and none of them are perfect. You know, there's no kind of everybody wants to find the conveyor belt theory that says, oh, this is how somebody gets on at the start. This is how they come off at the end because at the point being,

then we could stop it. What I would say with regards to envy is, I welcome the term, I hope we don't

“try to overclassify. It's not necessarily that important. I think it's important for re-sourcing,”

it's important for prioritization, but it's important to know that we're very confused all across the board by this movement and we don't want to let them fall through the cracks. One of the cases I've really spoken about a lot with regards to envy is relates to something that happened in the UK actually in a place called Southport in the north of England in 2024, where 17-year-olds walked into a Taylor Swift themed dance class and murdered three young girls under the age of 10.

I believe the three girls who were killed were stabbed cumulatively 200 times. This was a deeply homicidal person and the UK interestingly enough had actually been way ahead of the U.S. in terms of trying to understand these what they called mixed unclear and unstable ideologies. They had new categories within their counter extremism networks. They were thinking of it way more sophisticated than we were and yet this individual was referred to the counter extremism programs several times

and slipped through the cracks because they just couldn't categorize him because it was driven by like homicidal mania that he had found online rather than any kind of ideology. I don't want us to think this is a term that's perfect and catch all these cases will fit here or be able to prioritize and be able to target it and everything will be fine because what I've learned in my

career studying extremism and terrorism is they are always one step ahead of us. They'll always

find a way of kind of scurting around those boundaries and we have to be able to think much more

“flexibly I think about the threats we face the ideologies we face the online networks. That is”

how I think we'll be able to get ahead of it rather than thinking okay 764 is now categorized as a terrorist act or terrorist group and true kind of community we're going to target them with you know resources we just have to be much more flexible. So obviously in this context in law fair listeners will be aware there is this heightened concern around use of domestic terrorism terms particularly within the FBI and Tifa has been a big topic of conversation recently

and how the Justice Department and FBI label people as domestic terrorists at night in the Tifa. What's concerning about in VEEZ is that when you're applying this very broad term to people in VEEZ doesn't mean anything and so you can kind of stick it on anyone because that's whole purpose is that it covers this broad area of cases that the bureau couldn't cover previously.

Jacob it's that a concern of yours? Yes and no you know when the NBE term first emerged

it was met with a lot of pushback I think in the kind of counterterrorism research community because you know a lot of people felt that this was going to be used to distract from the fact that something called racially and ethnically motivated violent extremism or REMV which is really white supremacy and black supremacy was the prominent threat and you saw that a little bit in that first

has made a decision to investigate or prosecute him as a as a nihilist not a race being

ethically motivated by an extremist. I'm not sure that's correct at the same time you know I

“welcome a a more ambitious I think again attempt to classify incidents that have been around”

for a long time that we haven't necessarily been able to to meaningfully classify and understand I think it's it's good that we try to think a little bit more broadly I think it's good that we think outside the box and we're a bit more flexible. I'm not sure Peter how much actual legal strength this this category has I mean I'd be interested to hear Sheamus's thoughts you know my understanding in all the work I've ever done on domestic terrorism which has been quite a lot

is that there is no federal domestic terrorism charge now I know the government is there is no domestic terrorism category that has kind of groups associated with it so the administration is attempting to use domestic terrorism tools against antifa you know I have been

unable to run to ground what that actually means legally because and it's always been my understanding

“that doesn't exist and so as far as I'm concerned I think envy it more of an investigative tool”

it's more of how we conceptualize incidents how we conceptualize seven six four how we conceptualize the true crime community how we connect them to their predecessors and how we can then resource effectively to target actors rather than a hard and fast kind of this is the law and this is the law that they're breaking. Sheamus might wrong there. No I think you're absolutely right so I mean I would understand those concerns of kind of this mixing or this expansion of

domestic terrorism categorizations maybe a year ago right and you saw the term analysis of how extremism being thrown on to right wing extremism left wing extremism all host cases I think we've leveled out now like I think the Trump administration if they believe that someone is for lack of a word antifa they'll just say antifa now right and I think if they and we saw that in the prayer land trial it's happening right now they're not mincing words on that right

“I think it's it's fair to say now if they're talking about nihilistic violence extremism”

whether the bureau or law enforcement they're really talking about a street set of uh factors right these are individuals tend to be younger tend to be targeting children tend to be interested in mass shootings and things like that and less of a kind of a a trojan horse for a larger question about whether we should designate left wing or right wing extremism groups I think it's kind of a distinct thing now and so I have less concerns that I didn't

require one of the issues too pizza just just frankly is you know because again I know I've mentioned it several times but the true crime community cases that have really you know dominated the debate they have ended in suicide right there there is no big criminal case against you know the annunciation shooter right that individual is interesting because on their firearms they had both

the terms killed on ultrump and six million wasn't enough so you have both statements of what

you might call far left extremism and statements of far right kind of neo Nazi extremism neither of them would be the way we would you know investigate that case presumably we would investigate it on a nihilistic angle but there's no criminal case so we haven't had those real tests as well and I think that may shift you know there's been some percolations with the administration this idea of designating 764 at the State Department given its international links now that is a

completely different conversation that we're having now right so that opens up a whole host of kind of material support charges that you may be able to bring you know usually the past designation of groups that had some touch point to the US where organizations like the Nordic resistance movement which had really no real movement in the US if they did do a destination of 764 for an overseas designation of it it does have US ratification is very quickly and so that that I think is where we

just discussed like is this actually terrorism does a fit in the traditional definition things like that but it also to be fair also opens up a whole host of new law enforcement tools and techniques so among the cases that have wound up in federal court especially with 764 shame is what tools have you seen prosecutors use yeah so at an site the University of Nebraska Omaha at this research center called an site and we have been tracking all of the federal

prosecutions of true crime and crime in 764 if you look at 764 I think we've had 35 federal

going to be some variation of child exploitation so child pornography trafficking and children those type of things and then you know the occasional cyber stalking and so the US government

largely basically looks at what they got on the shelf in terms of charges and then throws it at

them that way and it's not like a we're going to bring a huge terrorism charge on this or things like that maybe they consider a reco charge that they can here and there but largely child exploitation right and like some of the I mean we talk you want to talk about the gun agreed just cases like

“the most recent one a most recent arrest was in California I think two or three weeks ago”

of uh I think he was 18 19 year old guy who traveled to California convince the third year old girl to go to a hotel that he had been cutie game with for quite a while sexually assaulted her and was playing to do a murder suicide over the hotel roof right and I'm really just agrees

just like in the criminal complaints really tough to read right and but that that's the the general

vibe of those cases right it's uh I've made of individual carve a swastika into their body so I can show my friends how I have power over that individual where I made them murder their family pet because I've already got them so deep by sending uh explosive pictures they can't get out and there's no way for them to talk to their parents about what they're seeing on this and so it's kind of a

“systematic level of depravity I think is is a level of concern for me right um and we're seeing like”

a pretty large focus on it on this idea of 764 and nihilistic violence extremism in the way we hadn't say seen in like six months ago you are seeing JTF stand-ups the separate separate squads

just for this there's guidance going out more I just want to kind of put it in the context of you

know there's also a lot going on for the bureau at the time right and we you know we're recording in the height of a peran war and there's going to be other things that the FBI's looking at and moving a personnel or letting go a personnel and so there's a lot of moving parts on these type of things but there's a core group of folks who within main justice and FBI that are focusing on this and are doing really good work on it one thing we haven't talked about I think which is in quite

important is um this idea of um victims who can be perpetrators too so if you look at some of the cases of individuals who've done these things they were victims of these these networks three or four years prior that and that makes it difficult it doesn't necessarily make it difficult to prosecute but it

“does make it difficult to decide if you want to prosecute or whether you should try a different way”

yeah Jacob do you want to add anything about that vicious cycle of abuse and also a little bit more about where exactly these groups operate sure um completely agree with what with what Shane was said I mean uh you will hear you know it's kind of a lot of the buzz terminology that will come out of terrorism scholars I find but certainly the solution here is going to be more on the prevention side than on the you know counter terrorism and law enforcement side the more that we can

educate you know parents and teachers and young people about you know the signs you know carvings for example that would indicate we you've got a problem in your family the better and I think that the earlier in a kind of a radicalization trajectory you can call it that or mobilization trajectory that we can intervene the better because uh seven six four especially is I think to find in a lot of ways by grooming processes that are happening and when you have victims while

becoming perpetrators I mean it puts you in in a very difficult ethical moral position with seven six four you know truly nobody in in this case with extremism writ large often but there are no winners here right nobody is nobody is you know try something over anybody else right everybody here is all about the vast majority are our victims as well as perpetrators and and the more that we can get ahead of that the better in terms of the networks you know unfortunately

what I've seen is often this starts with the more mainstream platforms places like you know telegram discord robaxia robax and oftentimes you know it might begin with an individual a young individual teenager or younger who's expressing some kind of vulnerability and that can be as simple as I'm really struggling to make friends in my new school or um I don't understand why uh why everybody in my community hates me or I don't I don't understand my uh gender identity that is

and then that escalates into the things the shameless knife discussed already right that ritualized

child sexual exploitation in order to be something that can be celebrated by the group in order to be something that can build clouds among the actors who are extracting these these photographs these videos in the worst cases that particular process will be fatal fatal to the individual who's being victimized or fatal to somebody in the family you know a pet for example you know I guess in the in the better cases if you can call it that again you know there are no winners here but

yeah I guess in the better cases the victims will survive those interactions might either see help or might end up you know back into the movement so the faster the early that we can get into these spaces and kind of interdict these processes the better but that is extremely difficult

“and I think as as Shameless could tell you far better than I can um we have been tracing”

prevention and countering run extremism for 25 years now and we've we failed to build the infrastructure we failed to build the sustainable kind of processes that that can protect our young people and this is just another case where they are being victimized and and suffering for that and you know I would add to the on this question prevention so if you look at the national center for a misnames quality children you know they ran the numbers for us the last week and they

I think they had we look 2000 reports in the last year involving 764 and what I thought was the most of the student about their data is at least half of those reports came from victims themselves mean that they were proactively reaching out the national center for misnames boy children saying like listen I don't know what I'm doing I don't I can't call my family there is no support line for this you all are the only ones left and that's a reflection of a government decision

and a society decision to not prioritize prevention as a as an effect on this so several of 764

“leaders including I believe as the name is Bradley Cadenhead who 764 is named after that's his”

phone zip code several of its leaders have been arrested have we seen the group kind of toned down at all with this increased focus from law enforcement I would say Cadenhead arrest didn't really affect the system in fact I think it just kind of set emotion on it but there were a few two major arrest by the FBI last year of leadership within the organization that did actually affect a little bit in a short term the ability to kind of push out their lower books and their telegram

channels and things like that so in many ways it's an online group that is kind of decentralized things like that but there is a central hierarchy system in some of the respects particularly as a group like 764 where you got kind of move up the ranks in the lower books and so a increase focus on again we say leaders but we're time at leaders being 7-year-old kids if we focus on those leaders it will probably have an effect on the rest of the network the count drawing

will be you know these are these are cultural phenomenon now and you know 764 I think is the true community certainly is not unlike other extremist networks from ISIS to Antifa to white supremacy

where you know you have these robust online ecosystems and there are leaders but the reality is

the violence that we see in our communities almost always in America these days is is low in active violence and so you can go after leaders all you want but until you you know can confidently kind of break the pathway that somebody's on from from being exposed to extremist content and then determine that they're going to commit an act of violence on behalf of that extremist ideology you're not going to be any closer to keeping our communities safe again I think

part of the challenge with this conversation is realistically you know the dynamics the differences between 764 and the true crime community you know are vast in a lot of ways so you know there's not going to be one purpose it's not going to be one counterterrorism recommendation you would make them say that would say hey this is going to fix the problem it's a lot more dynamic

“than that that's why you know people like shameless and I relentlessly talk about prevention”

because you just have to find a way to keep people out of these networks in the first place once

they're on the trajectory it becomes much harder so this has been pretty dark conversation this is I can't think of any darker cases happening on the federal level that I've read then 764 and in these I'm curious if either one of you have anything that you're hopeful about I'll give you one pizza right I don't know if I'm hopeful about it but I'm intrigued by it

looking at the worst of the internet on a daily basis you know I've come to the to the conclusion

“that you know social media companies are probably not a force for good and I think since Elon”

Musk's take over of Twitter and then his kind of leadership in the administration I think most American social media companies have actually moved in a direction of less moderation than more moderation and I would argue that's not a good thing for the kind of conversation we're having today but a lot of our allied countries are preparing to taking much harder stance on that so Australia for instance has passed a ban or is in the process of passing a ban on social

media for people under 16 that is a really really remarkable step and I'm not confident on how

we'll play out whether it'll be a good thing or a bad thing but I am glad that somebody's going to test that out see whether they can better protect younger people through just literally removing them from these from these battlefields removing them from the exposure to nihilists for example part of what online radicalization does it has completely violated the protective barriers that we used to erect around vulnerable young people whether it was their

parents or sports coaches or teachers or counselors or music coaches right all of those protective factors have been completely violated now and at some point as a society we have to think about what it's going to mean to put those back in place because we're losing our youth Australia's one

“example just very quickly another one is there was a remarkable speech given I think it was”

earlier this year but it might have been in November or December by the French president Emmanuel Macron race spoke about how American social media companies and Chinese social media companies were now posing a threat to European teenagers and to European democracy again that is a remarkable statement from one of our closest allies to compare us to China in terms of the effects we're having on European teenagers so there is a reckoning coming between American social media companies

and our allied countries I don't know how it will play out but I welcome the conversation I think is an important one let me add one I don't even know how to describe this is hopeful but let's just talk about it a group like seven six four if you look at like the debate on antifa designation or whatever they did on that or right wing extremism or Islamist extremism there are going to be pockets of people that are pushing back on that or seeing it as governor of reach and all the

right things a group like seven six four they come that is one that can actually bring together all different sides because protecting children right um they are targeting the most vulnerable society and it it can cross party lines and polarization in a way that I don't think any other issue on the kind of terrorism spectrum I ever could before and so I am hopeful that this actually might be a place where we can kind of rally together as a country and say enough is enough complete

degree well we'll leave it at that thank you so much for joining me thank you so much for having me

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