In brief
Australian girls are being targeted and coerced by online crime networks to commit violent acts against themselves, others, or even pets. The Australian Federal Police have initiated a taskforce to combat this alarming trend, identifying numerous offenders and emphasizing the role of gaming platforms in this disturbing development.
Australian girls are being hunted by online crime networks and coerced into acts of violence - against themselves, their siblings or pets - in a twisted type of gamification, police have warned.A new Australian taskforce has been set up to help the globe tackle this new and disturbing front in traditional gender-based violence, Australian Federal Police (AFP) Commissioner Krissy Barrett said in a speech on Wednesday.Three individuals have already been arrested in Australia, along with another nine around the world. While details of the specific acts being committed by the targets were not disclosed, Ms. Barrett emphasized that the alleged perpetrators hold extremist views and seek to inflict harm for fun.The individuals involved, aged in their late teens or early 20s and primarily from Western backgrounds, are known to recruit young girls through gaming platforms like Roblox or messaging apps such as Discord and Telegram. These so-called crimefluencers subscribe to various ideologies, including nihilism, sadism, Nazism, and satanism, and often target girls struggling with low self-esteem and mental health issues.Ms. Barrett explained that these groups operate similarly to multiplayer online gaming cultures, stalking and drawing in victims from multiple online platforms. Notably, the motivations for these actions are neither financial nor sexual, but purely for amusement and social media popularity.About 60 alleged offenders have been identified in Australia, and the AFP is collaborating with other Five Eyes nations - including the US, UK, New Zealand, and Canada - to tackle these groups effectively.In a proactive move, tech companies are assisting police in developing an AI tool aimed at detecting emojis and coded language used in discussions of sadistic exploitation within encrypted communications.Ms. Barrett's remarks coincide with Australia's upcoming introduction of a world-first ban on social media access for minors under 16, designed to mitigate online harm. However, this new legislation will exempt gaming and messaging platforms, which are slated to come into effect in December.
