Far right actors have used gaming to recruit youngsters for some time but experts say they are increasingly using codes and imagery to avoid moderation.
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Far right actors have used gaming to recruit youngsters for some time but experts say they are increasingly using codes and imagery to avoid moderation.
Far-right groups are increasingly using coded language and imagery on gaming platforms to bypass content moderators and radicalise young people, experts have warned.
Extremists use gaming as an initial place of a bonding before directing young people to platforms like Telegram and Discord where the content becomes more overtly ideological and racist.
The phrase “fighting age males” and words like “invaders” are often used by far-right groups like Britain First and Patriotic Alternative to depict asylum seekers and refugees as security threats. Experts say both groups are active in online gaming and streaming.
Academics spoke to The Ferret following revelations that Scotland's terrorism prevention programme witnessed a record number of referrals last year – with the highest proportion made over far right concerns. There were 162 referrals in 2024/25, an increase of 42 per cent compared to the previous year – and 38 per cent related to extreme right wing concerns.
There are also fears that more teenagers could be groomed online due to rising youth unemployment in the UK.
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Far right groups recruit online and British and US intelligence agencies have previously warned that extremists exploit the gaming environment to target young people.
Call of Duty, a first-person military shooter game, has been used by far-right groups as a recruiting tool for teenage gamers, as has Minecraft, an “open world’ creative building game often played by younger children. Both games have millions of online players.
Online gaming involves interactive gameplay with real-time conversations, often anonymously, creating relationships among users that might not exist in the real world and experts warn this environment provides opportunities for groups to target young people who may be susceptible to extremist messaging.
Dr William Allchorn, a senior research fellow at Anglia Ruskin University’s international policing and public protection research institute, told The Ferret there’s been a “notable shift” recently toward less “overt branding” inside gaming by far right actors.
He argued there is an urgent need for digital literacy for parents and police so they better understand how these platforms and subcultures operate.
Gaming companies said they are fully committed to child online safety and that “violent extremist content” is prohibited.
Far right actors trying to recruit young people through gaming include the white-nationalist group Patriotic Alternative, which is currently active at anti-asylum protests in Scotland. During lockdown, Patriotic Alternative targeted youngsters and with Call of Duty gaming tournaments and – according to researchers at Anglia Ruskin University – it live-streamed events on YouTube to children as young as 12 years old.
The white nationalist group remains “considerably active in gaming spaces”, according to Dr Allchorn, who published research after interviewing platform moderators who said there was inconsistent enforcement due to the complexity of harmful content.
Patriotic Alternative did not reply to a request for comment. Its leader Mark Collett has reportedly said they are not extremist, do not promote violence and peacefully campaign for the rights of what he calls indigenous British people.
The proscribed neo-Nazi terror group Atomwaffen Division is also believed to target gamers. In 2018, the BBC revealed it had found several individuals in the UK corresponding with its members over Discord, an online gaming chat platform. They launched their own group known as Sonnenkrieg Division, which was later proscribed. It was linked to the now banned System Resistance Network, which was active in Dundee, as reported by The Ferret.
“They're looking out for individuals that might be expressing grievances, young people that might align with their ideology,” Allchorn said. “They're inhabiting spaces, usually with an anonymised profile, using language that they know won't trigger automated moderation.”
Code words used include “great replacement” which alludes to a conspiracy theory and “14” or “14 words” which is numeric shorthand tied to a white supremacist slogan.
Hidden symbols to circumvent banned words that would be picked up by automated moderation tools, Allchorn added, including symbols stitched together to represent a swastika.
They're looking out for individuals that might be expressing grievances, young people that might align with their ideology. They're inhabiting spaces, usually with an anonymised profile, using language that they know won't trigger automated moderation. — Dr William Allchorn, Anglia Ruskin University
After initial contact in gaming spaces, conversations frequently move to encrypted apps, where explicit white supremacist propaganda appears. “The gaming space functions as the discovery layer,” Allchorn said, adding that the “ideological consolidation” occurs in private channels on platforms like Discord where conversations shift toward grievance narratives including migration, cultural replacement, masculinity, and anti-LGBT rhetoric.
“In our study, we’ve seen cases where younger users were gradually invited into invite-only servers where more explicit white nationalist material was shared,” he added.
On platforms such as Twitch – an interactive livestreaming service for gaming – some streamers “cultivate apolitical gaming personas” but introduce political commentary incrementally, Allchorn said, adding that younger viewers who spend hours in livestream chats can “develop loyalty that makes ideological messaging feel personal rather than propagandistic”.
Ben Rich, a senior lecturer at Curtin University, Australia, who researches extremism and disinformation, said extremists have been using digital platforms to spread their ideas for “quite some time”. He said they include more traditional spaces like Facebook and Twitter/X but also more “novel ones” like Discord, and video games - especially ones with “large audience bases” like Roblox, an online game platform and game creation system used by primary school aged children.
“This can greatly empower the ability to isolate, groom and recruit without the same kind of constraints that would be more likely to be present in the real world,” he argued.
According to The Global Network on Extremism and Technology, Minecraft, one of the world’s most popular online games, has been turned into a “tool for ideological grooming and radicalisation” by far-right extremists.
Minecraft has 200 million players a month and it allows user-generated content “creating vulnerabilities” that extremists can exploit, the report said. It added that far-right groups have “learned to speak the cultural language” of gaming communities and the use of Minecraft is part of a larger trend which it calls the “gamification of hate”.
This can greatly empower the ability to isolate, groom and recruit without the same kind of constraints that would be more likely to be present in the real world. — Ben Rich, Curtin University, Australia
Minecraft’s popularity with younger users make it an especially risky case, the report said, adding that by 2024, 43 per cent of Minecraft’s player base are aged 15 to 21. “While most players use these features harmlessly, far-right actors have exploited this freedom to build propaganda-filled environments, memorialise violent events, and embed hate speech into virtual architecture,” the report continued.
US intelligence agencies said users have replicated and role played prominent attacks in online games, including an attack in 2019 when a violent white supremacist targeted two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand. Islamic State, also known as the Islamic State of Iraq, has used gaming in recruitment videos.
The Counter Extremist project said last week that far-right groups are active on the gaming platform Roblox where they post white supremacist messages.
In November, the UK's Independent Reviewer of Terrorism Legislation issued a warning after ITV News found examples of extremist content available on Roblox.
Billy Briggs
A young Scot called Felix Winter was jailed for six years last year after threatening to carry out a mass shooting at his Edinburgh school. The court heard the 18-year-old had been “radicalised” online, spending more than 1,000 hours in contact with a pro-Nazi Discord group.
Winter held racist and pro-Nazi views and "idolised" the killers behind the 1999 Columbine High School massacre in the US, the court heard. He had been referred to the UK-wide Prevent counter terrorism programme four times.
Under the Prevent scheme schools and other public bodies are required to report people who show signs of being drawn into violent extremism.
The latest figures on referrals to Prevent, the anti-terror scheme, show that children aged under 15 accounted for 37 per cent of referrals in Scotland. About 27 per cent came from the north of Scotland and the most common reason was Islamist extremism.
Experts also said the rising number of jobless youngsters in the UK was a cause for concern. Latest figures show unemployment for those aged between 16 and 24 has risen to 16.1 per cent, its highest in more than 10 years.
Allchorn said that while there is not a “linear relationship” between unemployment and radicalisation, rising youth unemployment means more “discretionary time online”.
“Gaming becomes a primary social arena,” he said. “For a small subset of already alienated young people, that combination — isolation, time, grievance, and exposure to recruiters embedded in gaming culture — can create a vulnerability window,” he said.
“It’s important to stress that the overwhelming majority of young gamers are not at risk. The issue is not gaming per se, but the permeability of large, youth-dense digital spaces where moderation is inconsistent, lone use is pervasive and grievance narratives are actively seeded.”
Joshua Thorburn, an academic at Monash University, Australia, researching misogyny, said it is difficult to determine the relationship between time spent online and radicalisation but he added that high youth unemployment is concerning. “Young people who find themselves in a precarious economic situation have valid grievances,” he said.
“However, such grievances can be easily misdirected towards out-groups far-right extremists have long villainised. Most typically, immigrants and ethnic minorities. However, for many in far-right/manosphere spaces, the increased participation of women in the workforce is argued to have come at the expense of men.”
Karin Goodwin
A spokesperson for Microsoft, which owns Minecraft, said it has a “longstanding commitment” to child online safety and prohibits violent extremist content. “We leverage a variety of systems that empower players to enjoy a safe experience, including chat filtering, in-game reporting, parental controls, and more,” they added.
“If content violates our community standards, we have dedicated teams for review and moderation, who also work in coordination with Microsoft’s extensive security and threat analysis teams. On private servers that are set up independently by users outside of Minecraft’s systems, we investigate reported violations and apply enforcement mechanisms as needed.”
A Roblox spokesperson said it enforces a “strict policy” prohibiting content or behaviour that “incites, condones, supports, glorifies, or promotes any extremist organisation or individual”, adding that “swift action” is taken against content or accounts found to have broken its rules.
They added: “We use advanced AI technology to review all images, text, and avatar items prior to publishing, in order to prevent known extremist iconography from being posted while our default chat filters are designed to block the sharing of personal information and stop attempts to direct younger users to other platforms where moderation standards may be less stringent.”
Roblox works with law enforcement, civil society groups, and other organisations with specific subject matter expertise in countering those who would seek to promote violent extremism, the spokesperson continued. “While no system is perfect, our commitment to safety never ends. We continue to strengthen protections to help keep our users safe and encourage anyone who sees anything concerning on Roblox to report it to us.”
Telegram said it “blocks tens of thousands of groups and channels daily and removes millions of pieces of content” that violate its terms of service, including incitement to violence, sharing child abuse materials, and trading illegal goods.
Discord, Twitch, Call of Duty and Britain First were asked to comment.
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