NPR: Online extremist communities fuel new radicalization pattern targeting minors

Cody Zoschak, ISD-US Senior Manager, and Mack Lamoureux , Senior Manager of Communications, spoke to NPR about an emerging trend linking recent school shootings to violent online communities. One such community is The True Crime Community (TCC), which glorifies suspects of mass killings. Cody points out that, “At this point, we have tracked at least seven, and likely more, school shootings or disrupted school shooting plots in the United States linked to TCC individuals in 2024 alone.” Cody notes its gender balance, with girls often drawn in through eating disorder communities and boys via gore forums, both fostering desensitization to violence. 

Another online network targeting children is 764, which often sexually exploits minors. As Mack explains, “It’s almost like they’re little fandoms, and there’s hierarchies, and in each one there are these people that are trying to push their victims to do more and more extreme harm to themselves for clout.” He notes that these groups are often driven by misanthropy and nihilism rather than a single ideological cause, though they have been linked to occult groups and neo-Nazism.  

These online networks pose a new challenge for law enforcement, as they are harder to track. Cody suggests that “What this really requires is a dedicated team digging into the social media every time we get a threat or an arrest or, God forbid, a school shooting,”  

Read the full article on NPR’s website.