Algorithmic social media has amplified and accelerated the threat posed by the True Crime Community (TCC): an online fandom that glorifies perpetrators of mass violence.

The New Yorker recently interviewed ISD Senior Director of Threat Analysis & Prevention Katherine Keneally in its article on this phenomenon. Katherine explained that many cases involving TCC are not straightforward as young people utilize densely coded language to evade content bans.

“The swastika is easy to understand,” Katherine said. “The Atomwaffen Division logo, that’s obvious. But if there’s, like, an A.I.-generated version of a person who committed a shooting in the Philippines doing a TikTok dance with a number behind them that signifies the number of people killed in the attack—that’s a lot more difficult to understand.”

Katherine also explained how social media companies have downsized their trust and safety teams in recent years, which has caused TCC posts to go undetected. She also noted the significant role of social media and its algorithms, particularly TikTok, where TCC content spreads the fastest and farthest.

“It’s all well and good to report specific cases to law enforcement, but at the end of the day the platforms are also playing a significant role in the spread of this content that is radicalizing people to engage in violence.”

The full article is available on The New Yorker.