...is now considered a greater domestic threat...

...than Islamist terrorism

And he start shooting, like everyone

And across the world...

...a growing number of “lone actors”...

...with no traditional links to terrorist organisations...

...are prepared to attack...

...and kill for their beliefs

I started to build this hateful mindset of just going out there and...

...killing people

What's causing this spread of extremist ideology?

Like a virus...

...right-wing extremism has mutated in unpredictable ways

We have seen some of the extremist channels...

...explode in terms of their membership

And what can be done to stop hateful words...

...from becoming deadly actions?

When the Christchurch attacker walked into the Al Noor Mosque...

... in March 2019

…he wasn't just carrying firearms

He was also equipped with far-right extremism's latest weapon...

...a helmet cam...

...connected to a Facebook live-stream

Nearly 200 watched his murderous attack live...

...with many quickly replicating and sharing the footage...

...within hours it had gone viral

Police are investigating reports that...

...an attacker live-streamed their actions

The terrorist of Christchurch really had...

...a very strategic campaign in mind

Unfortunately, his methods were really effective because...

...it was recycled in these online far-right communities...

...as propaganda materials to recruit from young audiences...

...from gaming audiences

Because they made video-game versions of it...

...they made glorifying memes and visuals...

...from his materials that he had posted online

And that was then used to inspire future attacks

The Christchurch attack...

...revealed just how much the far right has evolved...

...since the days of the Ku Klux Klan

Rather than having formal ties to a specific localised group or party...

...the Christchurch attacker was part of a loose global community…

…of online extremists

And therefore considered a lone actor

One of the most difficult types of terrorist...

...for security services to detect

When you have...

...a kid who knows how to use a VPN...

...to disguise their internet connection...

...sitting in front of their computer...

...these individuals self-radicalise...

...get themselves some kind of a weapon and...

…it's just really hard to trace

You know it's one actor with no obvious connection...

...to any particular group you're monitoring

A report by the New Zealand Royal Commission...

...found the Christchurch attacker…

…was radicalised by content on YouTube...

...and other online platforms

But it's not just social-media channels...

...that provide a platform for far-right extremists

They've also used online gaming forums...

...to promote transnational racial ideas...

...like the Great Replacement...

...a conspiracy theory that states that whites are being supplanted...

...by non-white populations

Many right-wing extremists...

...feel that they're fighting what is essentially a defensive war...

...in which they are the victims

And they are...

...fighting against...

...people who would replace them with...

...a grand multicultural race or some other dominant race

A recent study from Cybersecurity for Democracy...

...found that far-right accounts are more successful...

...than other kinds of accounts at getting likes, shares...

...and other forms of user engagement

What attracts us most or what captivates our attention...

...has still not changed from a few hundred years ago...

...when we liked to watch bloody fights between gladiators or...

...witches being hung

We like radical and bloody content

We like incredible content

We like conspiracy theories

And that means that radical groups have a much easier time...

...to spread their messages online than moderate groups

Social-media algorithms have so far worked in the favour...

...of far-right extremists...

...keen to share their ideology

Since the early days of the internet...

...far-right extremists have been responsible...

...for around 700 terrorist attacks worldwide

And from 2015 to 2019...

...the number of far-right attacks has grown to over 60 every year

And the number of younger extremists has been growing

In Britain alone...

...numbers of 15-to 20-year-olds...

...referred to the government's counter-terrorism programme...

...Prevent, over suspected far-right involvement...

...have soared to well over 400 every year since 2017

The advent of digital culture has given right-wing extremists...

...a really unparalleled tool for recruitment

They can now reach directly...

...into the homes of...

...really young kids and...

...hook them with a form of propaganda that is very much...

...influenced by broader digital culture

Some groups have even been led by teenagers...

...such as the 13-year-old Estonian boy...

...nicknamed “Commander”...

...who was one of the heads of the neo-Nazi Feuerkrieg Division

And in February this year...

...a British 16-year-old boy...

...was sentenced for terrorism offences...

...having led an online neo-Nazi group

During the pandemic...

...online far-right internet activity boomed

Between March and April of 2020...

...membership of sites that discuss the Boogaloo, a term used by extremists...

...to describe an impending civil war...

...doubled to over 72,000

As conspiracy theories spread...

...the UN warned that right-wing extremists...

...were using covid-19 related disinformation...

...to radicalise, fundraise and inspire attacks

We have seen some of the extremist channels explode...

...in terms of the membership...

...because people have been more fearful...

...also more lonely, often sitting at home...

...and spending their late evenings or weekends...

...in some of the communities where extremist groups recruit from

Freedom, freedom, freedom

Before the pandemic...

...those on the fringes of the mainstream right...

...were fairly distinct from conspiracy theorists...

...and members of the far-right

But worryingly, disaffection with governments...

...over their handling of covid-19...

...has opened up some common ground

The pandemic has thrown together...

...both online and in these anti-lockdown protests...

...groups that would maybe not...

...have previously been exposed to one another

And the far-right extremists are able to use...

...both the conspiracy theories...

...and the disaffection of these...

...more sort of politically mainstream individuals...

...as a recruitment tool, again collapsing the difference between...

...what they believe and what the other groups believe

Tech companies have so far been slow to acknowledge their role...

...in providing a platform for far-right extremists

Within the past few months...

...Facebook, Twitter and others...

...have started to restrict some groups...

...but deplatforming...

...is not without its problems

You might decrease the reach that extremists have...

...but that also means that they move to the smaller fringe platforms...

...where they can share even more radical and violent content...

...because they're not being monitored there

One of the biggest challenges for the tech firms...

...and also the security forces is...

...the pace at which far-right extremists move across the internet

They're really good at circumventing new policies...

...that platforms introduce

They still manage to build up their own safe havens

Another tech solution being developed...

...is automatic software...

...that directs those searching for extremist content...

...towards alternative narratives

While these tools could derail some paths to radicalisation...

...state-level solutions...

...co-ordinated between governments...

...may be needed to bring about effective change

If there was something like a global...

...approach to really tackling far-right extremism...

...that would be really helpful because online...

...borders don't really matter...

...and if one government imposes...

...a restriction on far-right-extremist content...

...and another one doesn't...

...that means that extremists still can go online...

...and basically spread the ideologies in whatever country they want

America has lagged behind other nations in combatting the threat...

...of far-right extremism

Unlike Germany or Britain...

...America has no legal mechanism...

...to forbid domestic far-right-extremist groups...

...and individuals cannot be prosecuted for being part of them

Despite these challenges...

...there are laws that could be used to target...

...potential domestic terrorists

Yet some believe...

...there has been a lack of political will to enforce them

It's not always the case...

...that a particular government in power will have...

…preventing far-right extremism...

...as the top of their list of priorities

Freedom-of-speech laws in America...

...mean that unlike in many other countries...

...even hate speech is protected

And this leniency has had global repercussions

The US really matters here because...

...a lot of tech firms that host far-right-extremist content...

...are based in the US

So they determine basically...

...what is being taken offline globally

Left to self-regulate...

...many tech companies have resisted...

...fully enforcing even their own rules...

...to restrict extremist content

But there are some promising signs

Facebook's removal of hate speech...

...has risen eightfold...

...in just the past two years

And it recently announced it was stopping algorithms...

...recommending political groups to users

However, even in the best-case scenario...

...the internet will continue to be an effective tool...

...in radicalising and recruiting more people worldwide

Every attack feeds the beast

This culture that they have of mythologising...

...those who perpetrated these atrocities...

...merely inspires more and...

...unless something is done to...

...stem the flow of people...

...disaffected and susceptible to recruitment...

...more will be radicalised and we'll see more attacks

When President Biden took office in January...

...he claimed that tackling far-right extremism was a priority

A rise of white supremacy...

...domestic terrorism...

...that we must confront and we will defeat

But details so far have been lacking

In March...

...a joint intelligence paper...

...said that racially motivated extremism was...

...the biggest threat facing America

But how the administration intends to tackle the problem remains...

...unclear at this point

Experts agree...

...especially in light of hardships brought about by the pandemic...

...there's no time to lose

I do think it's hugely important that policymakers now look at...

...the population segments that are...

...the hardest hit by the crisis...

…in order to prevent them from being lured...

...into extremist networks...

...so that we can provide them with alternative solutions...

...before the extremists do

I'm Andrew Knox…

…a news editor for The Economist

To read more of our coverage, click the link

Thanks very much for watching