Thread by @SeattleBryn

In the wake of the horrific attack at Club Q in Colorado, some people on Twitter may be hearing the phrase “stochastic terrorism” for the first time. I wrote about it earlier this month for @sciam. But it’s not a new term.
scientificamerican.com/article/how-st…
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First, multiple pundits & politicians have been ramping up the “groomer” smear against the #LGBTQ community – especially drag queens & transgender people. It’s the reanimation of a zombie smear from the ‘80s that labeled gay men as pedophiles.
nbcnews.com/nbc-out/out-po…
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These baseless accusations have inspired violence before, sadly. Interestingly, the separate QAnon conspiracy theory, invoking a supposed cabal of satanic pedophiles, also uses disgust (again, the specter of sexual predators) as a means of persuasion.
theguardian.com/us-news/2020/a…
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So what is “stochastic terrorism”? Since some of the same people fanning the flames of incendiary rhetoric are pretending that the term was invented to silence them (nope, it’s not a “random guess” or about “suppressing free speech”), let’s delve into the history.
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The idea behind stochastic terrorism is that repeated demonization of individuals or groups of people can inspire unstable “lone wolves” & others to violence. The individual attacks aren’t predictable, but the words increase the odds of an attack.
businessinsider.com/stochastic-ter…
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Although the underlying ideas about how people become radicalized are far older, the precise term “stochastic terrorism” originated more than a decade ago, in 2011, as articulated in a detailed blog post here:
dailykos.com/stories/2011/1…
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The blogger's analogy: "The fact that [an attack] will happen is as predictable as the fact that a heated pot of water will eventually boil. But the exact time and place of each incident will remain as random as the appearance of the first bubbles in the boiling pot.”
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Crucially, the people who engage in stochastic terrorism are often shielded by plausible deniability. With few exceptions, it can be exceedingly difficult to prove a direct cause-effect link between incendiary words and violent actions.
salon.com/2021/06/30/tuc…
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A more extreme example of stochastic terrorism: the fatwa by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini in which he specifically called for the death of author Salman Rushdie. Those incendiary words very likely inspired the knife attack on Rushdie in August.
wilsoncenter.org/article/part-1….
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In 2016, Rolling Stone and multiple other news outlets covered the term after then-presidential nominee Donald Trump’s controversial remarks about his opponent, Hillary Clinton, were widely interpreted as a more veiled threat:
rollingstone.com/politics/polit…
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Researchers and legal experts have since debated which attacks may or may not qualify as stochastic terrorism, but the underlying concept and “growing threat” connected to it is becoming a very serious area of study. Here, for instance:
csl.mpg.de/en/projects/ph…
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Security experts in Europe have become increasingly concerned about the “worrying trend” of stochastic terrorism too. Here’s one take from a researcher in Brussels:
eeradicalization.com/stochastic-ter…
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Professor Kurt Braddock at American University explores stochastic terrorism, the mechanisms of persuasion, and other contributors to violent radicalization in his 2020 book, Weaponized Words, published by Cambridge University Press: cambridge.org/core/books/wea…
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If the term “stochastic terrorism” seems new, it may be because concern levels are now spiking, given the surge in attacks against multiple people & groups who have been targeted by name. To counter the threat, we need to understand how it works.
reuters.com/world/us/hate-…
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