Social media blamed for rise in teenagers under suspicion of far-right terrorism

Teenagers as young as 13 are coming under suspicion of engaging in terrorism after being exposed to a toxic cocktail of easily accessible far-right extremism online, experts have warned.

- Dan Sabbagh

Insiders describe “a horrible, hateful soup” of social media content where children can “pick and mix” terrorist narratives, including the Terrorgram network - recently banned in the UK - of white supremacist channels on Telegram.

Experts have tracked 49 children convicted of terror offences since 2016 - all but one of whom are boys - and this week Ken McCallum, the head of MI5, said 13% of all those being investigated by MI5 for involvement in UK terrorism were under 18, a threefold increase in three years.

But the increasing proportion of children under scrutiny also poses problems, with questions arising over whether teenagers should be criminalised, while MI5 and experts acknowledge such cases often raise issues of mental health or grooming.

Hannah Rose, an analyst with the Institute of Strategic Dialogue (ISD), said there had been a “surge in online extremist ecosystems” for several years, which remained “very easy for children to access”, and that “offline vulnerabilities, which kids are more likely to have, can make somebody more prone to adopting extremist views”.