Online youth radicalization

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Online youth radicalization is the action in which a young individual or a group of people come to adopt increasingly extreme political, social, or religious ideals and aspirations that reject, or undermine the status quo or undermine contemporary ideas and expressions of a state, which they may or may not reside in.^[1] Online youth radicalization can be both violent or non-violent.

The phenomenon, often referred to as "incitement to radicalization towards violent extremism" (or "violent radicalization") has grown in recent years, due to the Internet and social media in particular. In response to the increased attention on online "incitement to extremism and violence", attempts to prevent this phenomenon have created challenges for freedom of expression. These range from indiscriminate blocking, censorship over-reach (affecting both journalists and bloggers), and privacy intrusions—right through to the suppression or instrumentalization of media at the expense of independent credibility.^[2]

After terrorist attacks, political pressure is often put on social media companies to do more to prevent online radicalization of young people leading to violent extremism.^[3] UNESCO calls for "a policy that is constructed on the basis of facts and evidence, and not founded on hunches—or driven by panic and fearmongering."^[2][4]

Cyberspace is used to denote the Internet, as a network of networks, and social media as a social network that may combine various Internet platforms and applications to exchange and publish online: the online production of radical (political, social, religious) resources or content, the presence of terrorist or radicalized groups within the social networks, and the participation of young people in radical conversations.^[2]