Identifying Pathways to Engagement with The Com: A Study of Open-source Data

Project Overview

The decentralised online ecosystem referred to as The Com includes violent online communities such as 764 and No Lives Matter. Participants encourage and commit a wide range of harms, blurring the boundaries between organised crime, child sexual abuse, cyber offending, and violent extremism. Perpetrators are often children or young adults and frequently target vulnerable individuals, namely other children and those experiencing mental ill health. In some cases, victims are coerced into harming others themselves.

This brief summarises the results of an exploratory analysis of open-source data examining whether particular combinations of (risk) factors are consistently associated with four different harmful behaviours linked to engagement with The Com.

Key Takeaways

• When interpreting the results, it is crucial to remember that the analysis points to potentially meaningful patterns of co-occurring factors but does not establish causal pathways.
• For the 29 cases analysed in this study:
  • Offline violence was consistently associated with evidence of ideological commitment, alongside broader patterns suggesting a pre-existing propensity for violence
  • Engaging in (s)extortion was consistently related to psychosocial vulnerability, alongside a need for social reward and peer validation
  • Cyber offending, including doxxing, hacking, or swatting, was consistently linked to neurodiversity, alongside a need for gaining status, attention, or recognition
  • Taking a leadership role was consistently associated with prior engagement in transgressive or violent behaviour, alongside status seeking and evidence of social disconnection

Download and read the full brief from this project here.