Cody Zoschak, ISD-US senior manager, spoke to The Guardian about the rising number of non-ideologically motivated teens linked to school shootings and their relationships with online forums that glorify mass killers. He explains that these forums result in a “combination of self-radicalisation and group-enforcing radicalisation,” with many forming “parasocial bonds” with mass shooters.

However, children radicalised in this way often do not fit into pre-established ideological categories. “Right now, there’s no bucket for these people to be put in by the authorities, so they’re being treated like ideologically- motivated individuals, or they’re slipping through the cracks because they don’t fit the criteria,” Cody said.

He also described how these forums play into a larger trend known as nihilistic violence, which he explains as: “The violence is emotional and self-serving rather than political or ideological, and there’s really no desired consequence – the violence is the point.”

Read the full article on The Guardian’s website.