XPost: alt.education, talk.politics.guns, sac.politics   
   XPost: alt.politics.liberalism, alt.law-enforcement   
   From: yourdime@outlook.com   
      
   The online footprint of the 16-year-old who shot two students and then   
   himself at Evergreen High School this week fits into a new wave of online   
   extremism that calls for violence as a way to destroy society, experts   
   said.   
      
   Social media accounts for Desmond Holly suggest to experts that he was   
   involved in nihilistic violent extremist networks — which the U.S.   
   Department of Justice defines as people who seek to “destroy civilized   
   society through the corruption and exploitation of vulnerable populations,   
   which often include minors.”   
      
   An account on TikTok linked to Desmond showed several hallmarks of that   
   brand of extremism, said Matt Kriner, executive director of the nonprofit   
   Institute for Countering Digital Extremism.   
      
   Desmond also held an account and commented on a website called   
   WatchPeopleDie, which features videos of killings, sexual violence and   
   animal cruelty, according to the Anti-Defamation League.   
      
   “WatchPeopleDie and other online spaces are the nihilistic network,” said   
   Oren Segal, the ADL’s senior vice president of counter extremism and   
   intelligence. “Those who are spending their time posting images of murders   
   and beheadings and rapes and other horrible things, and also expressing   
   extremist and hateful views, and glorifying past shooters. That makes up   
   this nihilistic network.”   
      
   The network originated as an effort to accelerate the collapse of modern   
   society by exacerbating social tensions and dividing society through   
   violence, and has roots in white supremacy and fascism, Kriner said. But   
   the groups have continually evolved, and most nihilistic violent   
   extremists today don’t share a single strong ideology, instead relying on   
   a hodgepodge of different motivations, he said.   
      
   “They just hate everyone,” he said. “They don’t really have a goal. The   
   purpose is pain.”   
      
   Segal noted that three U.S. mass shooters in the last nine months were   
   active on WatchPeopleDie before their attacks.   
      
   “There is a through line between them,” he said. “There is something   
   connecting them, and it is these horrible online spaces. So even though   
   the tragedy is unique every single time, we can point to a common thread.   
   And we need to ask ourselves, ‘How do we stop it?'”   
      
   Violent extremist network   
   Both of the students that Desmond shot at the Jefferson County school   
   remained in critical condition Friday. Desmond’s parents and other   
   relatives have not returned requests for comment since his death.   
      
   The Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office has confirmed that Desmond was   
   radicalized, but has not provided any additional details on that   
   radicalization or its impact on Wednesday’s attack. Officials have said   
   they were still considering Desmond’s motive.   
      
   It's unlikely that white supremacy was the sole motivation for the   
   shooting at Evergreen High School, Kriner said, adding it is more likely   
   that Desmond was interested in mass shootings, then sought out the   
   extremist spaces online, where he was given the "cultural script" and a   
   guide on how to take action.   
      
   It's a typical progression into violent extremism, Kriner said.   
      
   "They build relationships with people in that space, find deeper content   
   that is a little bit more egregious, a little bit more radical — tactics   
   and glorification of past shooters — and it starts to merge into becoming   
   a copycat of those persons as a means of having a strong identity with the   
   new online community they found," Kriner said.   
      
   Desmond's specific motivation will be difficult to know even with his   
   online activities, Segal said.   
      
   "Here is someone who dabbled with neo-Nazi views, antisemitism, glorified   
   past shooters, echoed and posed similarly to them — but what is it about   
   all that that led this person to do this attack? I do not know," he said.   
   "It is the combination and the blurring of the lines between violent   
   fantasies and hate that is at the heart of this nihilistic network."   
      
   Columbine 'is the dominant influence'   
   Desmond's focus on the 1999 massacre at Columbine High School, also in   
   Jefferson County, is a central feature of these online extremist   
   ecosystems, Kriner said.   
      
   Young people across the world obsess with the Columbine attack, reliving   
   it and roleplaying it, he said, aided by extensive public material and   
   media coverage about the killers and their motivations.   
      
   "It is the dominant influence within the entirety of that ecosystem   
   online," he said.   
      
   Would-be attackers have even been known to use artificial intelligence   
   chatbots to re-create the personas of the Columbine attackers — with the   
   AI chatbot pulling from the reams of public information on the attack,   
   including the shooters' writings — allowing the creator to "almost   
   realistically" communicate with them, he added.   
      
   Photos on a now-deleted TikTok account linked to Desmond appeared to show   
   him creating and then wearing a T-shirt similar to one worn by one of the   
   Columbine shooters, including a post he made on the day of the attack.   
      
   In an earlier post showing that T-shirt, he included a photo of the 15-   
   year-old who killed two people and injured six more at a Wisconsin school   
   in December — and mimicked that attacker's pose in his photo.   
      
   That is a final warning sign ahead of an attack, Kriner said.   
      
   "The replication of an individual who has previously carried out a   
   shooting like that is almost assuredly a sign that the person had made up   
   their mind to do it," Kriner said.   
      
   On TikTok, Desmond's profile picture featured a stylized image of the 22-   
   year-old man who killed six people in California in May 2014 — which shows   
   Desmond was heavily online in an "alt-right," white nationalist space,   
   Kriner said.   
      
   In addition to antisemitic and white supremacist references, the account   
   also referred to "141," the name of a loosely connected network of people   
   online — largely centered on the messaging app Telegram — that grooms   
   young people both sexually and toward acts of violence, Kriner said.   
      
   Desmond collected tactical gear and talked online about getting a GoPro   
   camera so he could record his attack, according to the Anti-Defamation   
   League's review of his accounts.   
      
   "You got close to the full setup now man time to make a move," another   
   user commented on TikTok, according to a screenshot provided by the ADL.   
      
   How do you stop this?   
   Although there are consistent warning signs of radicalization in these   
   online spaces, it can be difficult for authorities to take action on those   
   warning signs.   
      
   "Because so much of this falls under the First Amendment, and there is no   
   proof they actively made offline credible actions... they are not   
   obligated to do much with that," Kriner said, adding that many platforms   
   will take down the content but stop there.   
      
      
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   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)