Australia’s counter-terrorism chief has kids’ gaming in his sights, as government programs look to meet youth where they are.
Brendan Dowling said Home Affairs was observing an increasingly-younger cohort of Australians holding mixed and extreme ideologies.
It marked a rare public appearance for Australia's counter-terrorism co-ordinator, appointed to the role in May after the commission’s interim report recommended the role was made permanent.
Social media already constituted a key frontier for counter-extremism efforts, he said, but gaming was of increasingly high-priority.
"In previous iterations of addressing extremist content on social media platforms, gaming hasn’t featured very prominently,” he told the Royal Commission into Anti-Semitism and Social Cohesion on Tuesday.
One pilot program aimed to redirect social media users from extremist content to its own resources and case handlers is tapped for an expansion into gaming.
Diversions Australia pop-ups directed more than 700 users from extreme social media content to its pilot site in the five months from January, according to preliminary findings.
Organisers were in talks with popular online gaming platform Roblox for further testing.
"Considering the level of concerning activity we see on gaming platforms, we’re very keen to work with programs like Roblox to try and reach that audience," Mr Dowling said.
"We know as a platform where there is a lot of user-generated content, the risk of violent extremist material or communications is very real.”
A Home Affairs department-contracted service provider developed the pilot under the department’s Countering Violent Extremism branch.
Mr Dowling said Australians as young as 10-years-old were eligible for some jurisdictions’ initiatives.
That was consistent with trends showing “disturbing rates” of youth radicalisation, he said.
“We see an increasing number of younger people engaging with extremist material,” he said.
“It’s often across a range of ideologies … a range of grievances whether it be neo-Nazi material, white supremacist material, anti-government material, jihadi material."
Mr Dowling described mainstream social media platforms as vectors for people "to reach violent extremist material”.
Among wider recommendations, he suggested the government explore a public-facing gaming scorecard grading developers’ action against extremist content.
Mr Dowling also suggested the government pursue further measures to limit social media harms to youth and improve digital literacy and critical thinking education in the context of radicalisation.
