1/ For those who missed my @GNET_research panel I'm going to share my slides here with some of my comments on how violent extremist organizations have leveraged the COVID-19 pandemic. 
2/ early analysis in 2020 raised two points, the COVID-19 health restrictions would likely have an impact on offline recruitment from VEOs, while simultaneously boosting their efforts at recruiting online.
3/ Was online recruitment successful is something that is difficult to answer and I have yet to find any convincing findings about this as we cannot talk about recruitment in the traditional sense.
4/ When we talk about recruitment there is a difference between a VEOs doing outreach, grooming and vetting, VS. individuals globally affected by the same crisis and sharing similar grievances finding themselves in similar ecosystems and forming online networks/offline movements
5/ What my research, and that of others, has highlighted is how there have been the formation of new recruitment pools where non-VEOs and VEOs/IMVE actors have merged. Pastel QAnon is an example of this gnet-research.org/2021/03/17/pas…
6/ QAnon has also been able to adapt itself to SovCit, III%, militias, boogaloo, etc. ideologies as these spaces have networked with each other in a symbiotic process of radicalization
7/ this phenomena has found its way into various VEOs, COVID-19 was able to bring the best out of people, but the same crisis can also bring out the worse. These cognitive and psychological phenomena is on display as various COVID-19 related grievances bring people together
8/ The nascent phenomena (yes a year is a short period of time even in a rapid changing space) of violent extremists, extremist & conspiracy theorists coming together in the numbers we have seen is a novel phenomena especially with the amount of crosspollination that is observed
9/ This has been augmented by large deplatforming events since the start of the pandemic, but none the more important that the January 2021 deplatforming of extremists and MAGA actors.
10/ Alt-tech spaces have'nt seen numbers of users as we've seen since February 2021, and we have yet to even feel the repercussions of this event. Taking telegram as an example ISIS or Terrorgram never had channels with tens of thousands of users never mind hundreds of thousands.
11/ the networking of extremist actors with threat actors is of concerns, as their symbiotic relationship grows. Not only are Twitter and Parler refugees now adopting violent extremist ideologies and narratives, but threat actors are adopting conspiracies they mocked in the past.
12/ Therefore, I would like to highlight 4 objectives of VEOs/IMVE threat actors: A) Undermine, B) Reinforce, C) Recruit, D) Inspire
13/ Undermining stems from the COVID-19 health measures, which have played an important role on VEOs who perceived these measures from federal, state/provincial, and local levels as impositions on their freedoms.
14/ These necessary and urgent actions played into the existing narratives of many of these VEOs who promoted anti-establishment and anti-government narratives, have taken every opportunity to protest, challenge and attack the "system".
15/ this reinforces VEOs narratives, which focused on the pandemic and its societal impact, and has a resonance with homesteaders, militias, preppers, accelerationists, as well as amorphous movements that fall outisde the VEOs box such as QAnon.
16/ Therefore, when the influx of those that were deplatformed, and are frustrated after more than a year of government restrictions, established VEOs with narratives about government overreach and how to deal with them are attractive options.
17/ This is especially true for those who perceive that electoral systems have failed them, law enforcement have failed them, the health system has failed them, and their information war has failed. At this point extremist solutions are more attractive
18/ This disenfranchisement and the impact of the pandemic has lead to an increase in potential recruitment pools: the economic impact oft he pandemic, the perceived government overreach, social isolation, social and political uncertainty.
19/ COVID-19 has inspired a fair amount of action from VEOs or IMVE actors, whether it was the Boogaloo Bois , Michigan Wolverines, III%, QAnon, Proud Boys, Oath Keepers, etc., to individual actors not affiliated to an organization.
20/ Actions have ranged from derailing of a Train, to burning down cell towers, targeting of vaccine clinics, attacking government buildings, targeting politicians, attacking protesters, attacking law enforcement, etc.
21/ Ultimately the pandemic has played an important role in the IMVE and CT space. This is not surprising. However simply because we appear to be at the tail end of this pandemic, it does not mean the issue will dissapear.
22/ those who have been radicalized have a trained behavior and an emotional needs to be filled and they will seek to do so somewhere else. Deplatforming may be a sexy solution that gives the appearance of success but it is a double edged sword.
23/ Not deplatforming would have had its own consequences, but now that were we need to accept that this will not solve the issue. Platforms and decision makers love to push for deplatforming because it gives the appearance that they are doing something to deal with an issue
24/ However, these are short cited decisions limited to a two or four-year span. Deplatforming alone without comprehensive approaches that would take societal reconstructions and changing the way that we deal with the factors that lead to radicalization is a poor option.
25/ the deplatforming band aid is great because you want to pass the public opinion test, but it deals with actors without attacking the core causes or those who fall outside "groups" and sweeps the issue under the rug.
26/ We need to deal with the factors that lead individuals radicalization, which are simply not a list of things at times; up until then, there is nothing that is going to be done that will eliminate the issue.
27/ and if we can see what happened with January 6th the massive amount of deep platforming has led to 1.2 million users going to telegram alone and these are individual accounts that have been engaging with not only QAnon content but more extremist content.
28/ Yes they're not on Facebook and Twitter and maybe having less of an impact on the everyday discussion; however, the fact that they're in these more radical spaces means that they will become in some cases more dangerous threat actors than they would've been
29/ Platforms and governments need to ask themselves how beneficial is it to remove a group of shit posters on Twitter and Facebook, knowing the alt-tech spaces they will end up are inhabited by violent extremists? will deplatforming lead to more radicalization to violence?
30/ we don't have enough data to answer that at the moment, but it is something that needs to be considered. Especially as platforms will have a caretaker role, not only from a content management perspective but also from a user threat reduction perspective.
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