Austrian security officials have warned of a disturbing new form of extremism taking root among young people online: violence driven not by political or religious belief, but by nihilism, the sense that nothing matters.
At the Interior Ministry’s seventh Prevention Summit in Vienna on Thursday, Sylvia Mayer, director of the State Protection and Intelligence Service (DSN), presented figures as stark as they were unsettling. According to one study, the average perpetrator is just 20 years old. The average victim is 13.
Mayer said dangerous online communities are drawing children and teenagers into self harm, misogyny and serious violence. In extreme cases, participants are encouraged to kill people “for no reason.” Recruitment, she warned, takes place chiefly in digital spaces, where isolation, anonymity and repeated exposure to extremist content can gradually normalise cruelty.
The scale of the threat was illustrated by a case now before a court in Hamburg. A 21 year old German, reportedly known online as “White Tiger,” faces more than 200 alleged internet offences. Prosecutors accuse him of driving a 13 year old boy from the United States to suicide and of pushing a 14 year old Canadian girl to attempt to take her own life. More than 30 minors, from Germany, England, Canada and the United States, are said to have been affected. The allegations remain subject to the ongoing trial.
Interior Minister Gerhard Karner said crime and extremism were becoming “younger and more digital.” A social media ban alone would not be enough, he argued; children and young people also need education, awareness and adults willing to recognise the warning signs.
State Secretary Jörg Leichtfried called prevention a task for society as a whole, requiring cooperation between police, scientists, teachers, social workers and civil society. “We must not respond to today’s threats with yesterday’s categories,” he said.
For Franz Ruf, director general for public security, the danger is not necessarily greater than before but it has become far harder to see. Unlike traditional extremism, where violence serves a political or ideological goal, nihilistic violence can make harm itself the purpose.
Mayer urged earlier detection online and consistent prosecution, even when offenders are young. “We must bring the perpetrators to justice,” she said.
