From “Incel” to “Saint”: Analyzing the violent worldview behind the 2018 Toronto attack

Baele, Stéphane; Brace, Lewys; Coan, Travis

doi:10.1080/09546553.2019.1638256

Cited by 107 publications

(147 citation statements)

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“…Individuals like Leslie Jones may find themselves singled out for attacks, but many of these violent attacks are interconnected and led by discriminatory groups that organize in digital spaces. These abusers often find their homes in extremist alt-right, white supremist, homophobic, and misogynistic groups whose online messaging boards purposefully share discriminatory messages that dehumanize and encourage physical violence against equality-seeking groups (Baele, Brace, & Coan, 2019). Abusers' messages are often veiled under arguments for freedom of expression, conservative values, or described as jokes not to be taken seriously.…”

Section: Critical Race Theory: Systemic Violencementioning

confidence: 99%

“…Similar groups, such as Incels, have advocated for and celebrated physical violence against women and employ a similar pattern of shared images and language to reinforce their messages of violence. Incels have been connected to at least two mass killings where the killers have been upheld as heroes of the movement for murdering people in revenge for their lack of sexual access to women (Baele et al, 2019). What makes the words and images used by these groups violent is their ability to reinforce systemic discrimination that dehumanizes marginalized groups, normalizing or inciting real world attacks against them.…”

Section: Critical Race Theory: Systemic Violencementioning

confidence: 99%

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Is it Actually Violence? Framing Technology-Facilitated Abuse as Violence

Dunn

2021

The Emerald International Handbook of Technology-Facilitated Violence and Abuse

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When discussing the term "Technology-Facilitated violence" (TFV) it is often asked: "Is it actually violence?" While international human rights standards, such as the United Nations' Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (United Nations General Assembly, 1979), have long recognized emotional and psychological abuse as forms of violence, including many forms of Technology-Facilitated abuse (United Nations, 2018), law makers and the general public continue to grapple with the question of whether certain harmful Technology-Facilitated behaviors are actually forms of violence. This chapter explores this question in two parts. First, it reviews three theoretical concepts of violence and examines how these concepts apply to Technology-Facilitated behaviors. In doing so, this chapter aims to demonstrate how some harmful Technology-Facilitated behaviors fit under the greater conceptual umbrella of violence. Second, it examines two recent cases, one from the British Columbia Court of Appeal (BCCA) in Canada and a Romanian case from the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR), that received attention for their legal determinations on whether to define harmful Technology-Facilitated behaviors as forms of violence or not. This chapter concludes with observations on why we should conceptualize certain Technology-Facilitated behaviors as forms of violence.

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Section: Critical Race Theory: Systemic Violencementioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Critical Race Theory: Systemic Violencementioning

confidence: 99%

Is it Actually Violence? Framing Technology-Facilitated Abuse as Violence

Dunn

2021

The Emerald International Handbook of Technology-Facilitated Violence and Abuse

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“…This enabled them to justify their subreddits as online support groups for bullied and oppressed men. It was also common for incels to draw on baseless pseudoscientific theories to provide intellectual legitimacy for their claims (Baele, Brace, and Coan 2019). This "turbocharged genetic determinism" (Ging 2017, 650) enabled incels to deny responsibility for their lack of romantic relationships and provided opportunities to justify their misogynistic attitudes.…”

Section: Findings and Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Incels on Reddit: A Study in Social Norms and Decentralised Moderation

Gillett

Suzor

2021

SPIR

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The social news website Reddit has a long history of hosting communities (‘subreddits’) that advocate or encourage white supremacy (Gillespie 2018), disparagement of minority groups (Topinka 2017), and violence against women (Massanari 2017). As a platform that relies heavily on volunteer moderators to self-govern the subreddits (Matias 2016), Reddit has been criticised for failing to adequately enforce its site-wide rules (Gillespie 2018). Incels—an internet subculture that ascribes to deeply misogynistic beliefs—grew in visibility when they developed subreddits on Reddit. After ongoing criticism and media attention about harmful behaviour of incels both on and off the platform, Reddit imposed escalating sanctions and ultimately banned the most visible of these subreddits over a period of several years. In this paper, we focus on the interaction between formal rules and social norms in incel and related subreddits. This paper aims to improve understanding about how problematic norms are contested in (partially-) decentralised systems of content moderation. We examine discourse about moderation to better understand the role of moderation teams in maintaining and changing social norms in their communities and to examine the interaction between these norms and both sitewide and subreddit-specific rules. Our analysis suggests that the threat of prohibition alone is unlikely to be sufficient to drive cultural change in problematic subreddits. We argue that content moderation is an insufficient frame to understand the regulation of harmful communities; real change requires addressing the underlying cultural norms rather than focusing on individual pieces of content.

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“…Particularly, perceived masculine identity threats motivate engagement in violent hypermasculine behaviours (Kalish & Kimmel, 2010) and induce feelings of injustice and victimhood (Center on Extremism, 2019;DiBranco, 2020), as well as a strong desire for women's (sexual) subjugation (Díaz & Valji, 2019;O'Malley, Holt, & Holt, 2020). A sense of frustrated entitlement and superiority transform shame, anger, and perceived injustices into a desire for revenge against women, ethnic minorities, and wider society (Baele, Brace, & Coan, 2019;Kimmel, 2017). Resultingly, perceived victimhood and violated entitlement expectations are argued to be fundamental drivers for the current wave of mass violence committed by white males (Hoffman, Ware, & Shapiro, 2020;Kimmel, 2017), where retributive violence is seen as a legitimate and righteous response to male suffering to restore status and dominance (Marganski, 2019).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Misogyny, Violent Extremism and Interpersonal Violence: Examining the Mediating and Contingent Effects of Revenge Motivation, Hypermasculinity, Collective Narcissism and Group Threats

Rottweiler¹,

Clemmow²,

Gill³

2021

Preprint

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The growing evidence base of risk factors for violent extremism demonstrates overlaps with parallel problem areas like domestic violence, mass murder, and stalking. Yet, empirical research examining the overlap among these domains is limited. The present analysis aims to address the lack of empirical research on the relationship between misogyny, violent extremism, and interpersonal violence by conducting survey-based analyses employing a newly developed and validated psychometric scale to measure misogyny. Based on a UK nationally representative survey (n = 1500), we examine the underlying mechanisms and contingent effects linking misogyny to violent extremism and interpersonal violence. We investigate how misogyny, frustrated narcissistic entitlement, and group threats among men translate into revenge motivation and hypermasculinity and thus, may increase violent extremist intentions and attitudes, as well as justification of and willingness to engage in interpersonal violence. The results show that misogyny predicts violent extremist attitudes and intentions as well as increased support for and willingness to engage in interpersonal violence via revenge planning and hypermasculinity, particularly among men who experience frustrated narcissistic entitlement and greater threats to the ingroup. Among women, misogyny is not associated with violent extremist attitudes or intentions but is associated with increased support for and readiness to use violence. Our findings have important practical implications as we provide evidence which articulates when and for whom misogyny may be a risk factor for violent extremism and interpersonal violence. Establishing the relevance of misogyny as a risk factor for (extremist) violence may provide evidence for more targeted prevention and intervention programs.

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From “Incel” to “Saint”: Analyzing the violent worldview behind the 2018 Toronto attack

Cited by 107 publications

References 0 publications

Is it Actually Violence? Framing Technology-Facilitated Abuse as Violence

Is it Actually Violence? Framing Technology-Facilitated Abuse as Violence

Incels on Reddit: A Study in Social Norms and Decentralised Moderation

Misogyny, Violent Extremism and Interpersonal Violence: Examining the Mediating and Contingent Effects of Revenge Motivation, Hypermasculinity, Collective Narcissism and Group Threats

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