FRONTLINE: Documentary on Terrorgram features expertise from ISD’s Milo Comerford

Milo Comerford, ISD’s Director of Policy & Research (Counter-Extremism), was featured in the PBS FRONTLINE documentary The Rise and Fall of Terrorgram.

The documentary, which was produced alongside ProPublica, explores the Terrorgram Collective, a transnational neo-Nazi terrorist network. It takes viewers through the history of the network, that has been linked to several shootings and other violent attacks. In the documentary Milo explained the group’s goals and its embrace of militant accelerationism. 

“Militant accelerationism is a terrorist ideology that is rooted in notions of white supremacy,” he said. “It looks to collapse the societal order and encourage race riots across western countries in particular. This is really about encouraging violence, polarization, and racial animus that can lead to a war and a conflict that can be used as the basis for forming a white ethno-state.”

Milo also unpacks the history of the collective, including how they began idolizing mass killers as “saints” and publishing instructional material intended to inspire future attacks. He highlighted the difficulties that law enforcement has when dealing with decentralized groups like Terrorgram on a platform like Telegram—and how that began to change when Telegram’s founder was arrested in France.  

If you’re in the United States, you can watch the documentary on FRONTLINE’s YouTube page. If you are outside of the US, you can read ProPublica’s investigation here.