INTELBRIEF
September 9, 2025
The Online Radicalization of Youth Remains a Growing Problem Worldwide
Bottom Line Up Front
- The online radicalization of youth worldwide is a growing problem that policymakers and government officials continue to grapple with.
- Youth radicalization is not only a problem in the United States and Europe but also in Asia, particularly in South Korea, India, the Philippines, and Singapore.
- Social media platforms like TikTok, X, and Facebook enable violent extremists to recruit youths more expediently than in-person; algorithms channel those youths to more emotionally charged content; and online gaming enables both isolation and community building; each of these has a radicalizing effect.
- A public health approach where practitioners work to “inoculate” youths against extremism by providing knowledge, alternative narratives, and community is beginning to bear fruit, but funding cuts could challenge the initiatives.
Online radicalization of youth is a problem with global reach. A radicalization process that once unfolded over months or years now typically takes days or even hours, largely due to the prevalence of extremist short-form online propaganda. Right-wing extremism, left-wing extremism, nihilistic and “salad bar” extremism, and Islamist extremism all make use of social media to target and radicalize youths. According to the Global Terrorism Index, in the West, far-right extremism alone has risen 250% over the last five years.
Social media has enabled recruiters to bypass parents, educators, and community members who may have previously protected vulnerable youths. Platforms like TikTok, X, and Facebook enable extremists to access younger audiences, and algorithms channel impressionable youths to ever more emotionally charged content in order to maximize clicks and stays. While youth radicalization has been widely reported on in the U.S. and Europe, it is not only a Western problem. South Korea, Singapore, the Philippines, and India all report problems with rising far-right extremism. There is an extensive network of far-right extremist groups online in Southeast Asia that share appropriately contextualized content across social media. For example, the Philippine Falangist Front (PFF) is an online community of Filipino men that blends Spanish fascism with Catholicism; they meet on TikTok, Facebook, and Discord to lament the Philippines as a nation “in crisis” and share propaganda.
In South Korea, where right-wing extremism channels young men’s grievances via the lens of misogyny, online groups like New Man on Solidarity and Ilbe Storehouse play a key role. New Man on Solidarity’s YouTube channel has over 500,000 subscribers, while Ilbe Storehouse enjoyed a surge in popularity following the rise of far-right Yoon Suk Yeol as a presidential candidate. Taken together, online venues like these provide a space for disgruntled, often underemployed, isolated, aggrieved young men and provide them a target: Korea’s women. India is also experiencing challenges with youth extremism, but it is not women who are the target but rather Muslims through the lens of Hindu nationalism. The far right’s Great Replacement Theory exists here, but not as immigrants flooding and diluting white European or Singaporean Chinese native citizens, but instead as Muslims displacing Hindus. With the rise of the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and its allies, there is a specific state approval to the radicalization of youths in Hindu nationalism, which is occurring via social media, WhatsApp groups, and TV channels. This issue is spilling over into classrooms and schoolyards, with Muslim students reporting bullying by teachers and classmates.
Gaming also plays a significant role in the radicalization of youth. According to a 2024 study by the Anti-Defamation League, “Hate is No Game," 23 percent of online gamers have encountered right-wing extremist propaganda in the course of gaming. Christian Picciolini notes that far-right extremists use multi-player games like Fortnite, Minecraft, and Call of Duty to target socially isolated youths with the promise of fun, solidarity, and community. The Philippine Falangist Front also uses online gaming to build community and bond socially with other members. Online gaming can also embolden already radicalized youth by providing them an opportunity to role-play their violent fantasies. Nick Lee, the 17-year-old who plotted a mass shooting at five mosques in Singapore, played online multiplayer violent simulation games, where he pretended to kill Muslims at a mosque.
In Southeast Asia, youth cognitive radicalization — often via TikTok — is translating into plotting violent actions. Over the past decade in Singapore, nine youths were arrested under the Internal Security Act for planning acts of terrorism. Most notorious was Nick Lee’s plan to attack five mosques, kill 100 people, and kill himself. Lee was radicalized, at least in part, by the video and manifesto of Brenton Tarrant, who perpetrated the Christchurch massacre in New Zealand. After learning about the great replacement theory, he came to believe it was happening in Singapore. In 2020, according to the Singaporean Ministry for Home Affairs, a 16-year-old Singaporean boy plotted attacks against the Assyafaah and Yusof Ishak mosques; like Lee, he was also inspired by Tarrant’s Christchurch attack. Likewise, in Indonesia in 2024, a 19-year-old college student plotted a suicide bombing targeting houses of worship in East Java. All of these plots were disrupted in the planning stages, and all these young men were radicalized online.
In South and Southeast Asia, there have been a number of youth-led initiatives to counter violent extremism, both on social media and on the ground, with Facebook, X, and Instagram being the most popular online hubs for digital activism in the region. These activists both build community and counter extremist narratives in their online and offline activities. Primitivo III Cabanes Rangadang, PhD candidate at the Australian National University, says that the narrative campaigns in Southeast Asia tend to follow three tracks: condemning violent attacks that have already taken place; highlighting issues that can engender dislocation and alienation; and promoting positive values like cooperation, mutual respect, and empathy. Activists are working to counter violent extremism and extremist narratives from Mindanao to Indonesia to Sri Lanka to Afghanistan.
At the individual level, Dr. Cynthia Miller-Idriss, founder of the Polarization and Extremism Research and Innovation Lab, calls for us to “treat extremism like a virus,” taking a public health approach to counter extremism and viewing preventative measures as inoculation. This must begin early. Schools can teach digital literacy and citizenship to young children so they can grow up being critical consumers of online materials. Implementing healthy digital habits at home for children and adolescents in social media usage and in online gaming is critical, as are open conversations about mental health and building community. In our deeply connected world, we all deal with variations on the same threat.
Julie Chernov Hwang, PhD is an Associate Professor in the Department of Political Science and International Relations at Goucher College, a Senior Research Fellow at the Soufan Center and a Harry Frank Guggenheim Distinguished Scholar.