Stochastic terrorism is a form of political violence instigated by hostile public rhetoric directed at a group or an individual. Unlike incitement to terrorism, stochastic terrorism is accomplished with indirect, vague or coded language, which grants the instigator plausible deniability for any associated violence. [1] A key element of stochastic terrorism is the use of media for propagation, where the person carrying out the violence may not have direct connection to any other users of violent rhetoric. [2] [3] [4]
Although stochastic terrorism is considered an academic term without a formal legal definition, [1] it is differentiated from other forms of terrorism due to its public, indirect, and seemingly random nature.
In 2002, the term was first used by Gordon Woo to describe a process to quantify risk of a terrorist attack. [1] [20] [21] [22]
Credit for defining the term has also been given to the blogger, G2geek, on the Daily Kos platform in 2011, when defining it as "the use of mass communications to stir up random lone wolves to carry out violent or terrorist acts that are statistically predictable but individually unpredictable", with plausible deniability for those creating media messaging. [1] [23] [24] The article covered the 2011 Tucson shooting. [14]
As of 2016, "stochastic terrorism" was an "obscure" academic term according to professor David S. Cohen. [25] During an August 9, 2016 campaign rally, then-candidate Donald Trump remarked "If [Hillary Clinton] gets to pick her judges, nothing you can do, folks. Although the Second Amendment people, maybe there is. I don't know." These comments were widely condemned as instigating violence, and described by Cohen as "stochastic terrorism", further popularizing the term. [26] [25] [14] Trump has continued to be criticized as inspiring violence. [27] [28] [29] [30]
Counterterrorism techniques such as attitudinal inoculation can help explain to a broad audience how radicalization and manipulation works, helping to blunt the impact of messages that increase violent tendencies. [14] [11] Seth Jones argues that labeling domestic terrorist groups, similar to labeling of international groups, would be helpful, although he acknowledges that most right-wing violence is perpetrated by lone wolves. [31] Rachel Kleinfeld advocates for increasing the penalties of violent actions or threats against elected officials, election workers, and other essential personnel for the functioning of a democracy to a specially-protected class similar to how hate crimes are classified. [32]
While U.S. jurisprudence narrowly defines the crime of incitement, conduct that incites ethnic or racial hatred is illegal in many other jurisdictions. In Germany, for instance, Volksverhetzung is speech that "denigrates an individual or a group based on their ethnicity or religion," or "tries to rouse hatred or promotes violence against such a group or an individual" and is punishable by up to five years in prison. [33]
The 2009 murder of George Tiller has been described as an example of stochastic terrorism, as many conservative news opinion shows and talk radio shows repeatedly demonized him for his administration of post-viability abortions. [26] [34] [25]
The 2011 Tucson shooting where US Rep Gabby Giffords was shot has also been cited as a prominent example. [35] [36] [37]
Al Qaeda and ISIS used this tactic, which has been cited as the mechanism that inspired attacks including Boston Marathon bombing and Fort Hood. [2]
The 2015 murder of Jo Cox MP by white supremacist Thomas Mair ahead of the Brexit referendum has been described as stochastic terrorism. [38] It has been noted that the views held by Mair –including anti-immigrant and anti-refugee sentiment –are part of mainstream British political discourse. By describing the murder in the context of Nazism, the presiding judge separated the sentiments from modern political discourse rather than drawing attention to contemporary extremist groups and figures whose rhetoric were likely to have influenced Mair. [39]
In their 2017 book Age of Lone Wolf Terrorism, criminologist Mark S. Hamm and sociologist Ramón Spaaij describe ISIS, [1] Anwar al-Awlaki, and Alex Jones as guilty of stochastic terrorism. [24] : 157 In the 2010 Oakland freeway shootout, Byron Williams was said to be en route to offices of the American Civil Liberties Union and the Tides Foundation, planning to commit mass murder, "indirectly enabled by the conspiracy theories" of Glenn Beck and Alex Jones. [24] They also cite the 2012 shooting at the Family Research Council. [24]
The 2017 congressional baseball shooting has been described as an act of stochastic terrorism. [40] [35]
The 2018 mail bombings were also attributed by Barbara MacQuade, [2] Medhi Hasan [41] and Jonathon Keats [36] as stochastic terrorism indirectly inspired by the rhetoric of Donald Trump.
The Gretchen Whitmer kidnapping plot in 2020 has been described by Molly Amman and Reid Meloy as an example of stochastic terrorism. [5] [1] [11] [42]
In the wake of escalating attacks on the LGBT community in the early 2020s, including bomb threats on children's hospitals and the Colorado Springs nightclub shooting, right-wing activists such as Matt Walsh and Chaya Raichik of Libs of TikTok have been accused of stochastic terrorism by commentators Kristofer Goldsmith, [43] Helen Santoro [44] and Juliette Kayyem. [45] [46]
The 6 January attack on the Capitol has also been described as stochastic terrorism. [2] [42] [47] [40] [8]
The May 2022 Buffalo shooting [16] [48] [49] and the August 2022 Cincinnati FBI field office attack have been cited as examples of stochastic terrorism. [50] [51] [52] [53] [54]
The perpetrator of the October 2022 attack on Paul Pelosi stated he was looking for Nancy Pelosi and hoping to intimidate other Democratic lawmakers, actions that have been described by some commentators and academics as stochastic terrorism. [55] [56] [40] [57]
In June 2024, two racially motivated stabbing incidents happened in Oulu, Finland. [58] Green Sisu described the attacks as stochastic terrorism and being predated by years of hostile rhetoric from far-right politicians in Finland, most notably from the Finns Party. [59] [60]
Following the July 2024 Southport stabbing, inflammatory remarks and sharing of disinformation by public figures were linked to subsequent rioting. The Reform UK leader Nigel Farage was accused by former counter-terrorism Police chief Neil Basu of inciting violence and creating conspiracy theories. [61] [62] [63] Islamophobic and racially-motivated disorder, including a stabbing, [64] were linked to the English Defence League and British Movement, following social media posts by right-wing extremists. [65] [66] [ improper synthesis? ]
Starting in September 2024, false claims and rumors spread that in Springfield, Ohio, Haitian immigrants were stealing pets and eating them. These claims were amplified by prominent figures in the American right, most notably Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump and his running mate JD Vance. [67] [68] In the following days, the city of Springfield received dozens of bomb threats [69] leading multiple commentators and a sitting senator, Brian Schatz, as well as Elie Mystal and school administrators in Springfield to suggest Trump and JD Vance were engaging in stochastic terrorism. [70] [71] [72]
A hate group is a social group that advocates and practices hatred, hostility, or violence towards members of a race, ethnicity, nation, religion, gender, gender identity, sexual orientation, or any other designated sector of society. According to the United States Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), a hate group's "primary purpose is to promote animosity, hostility, and malice against persons belonging to a race, religion, disability, sexual orientation, or ethnicity/national origin which differs from that of the members of the organization."
A lone wolf attack, or lone actor attack, is a particular kind of mass murder, committed in a public setting by an individual who plans and commits the act on their own. In the United States, such attacks are usually committed with firearms. In other countries, knives are sometimes used to commit mass stabbings. Although definitions vary, most databases require a minimum of four victims for the event to be considered a mass murder.
Ecofascism is a term used to describe individuals and groups which combine environmentalism with fascism.
Far-right politics are a recurring phenomenon in the United Kingdom since the early 20th century, with the formation of Nazi, fascist and antisemitic movements. One of the earliest examples of fascism in the UK can be found as early as 1923 with the formation of British Fascisti by Rotha Lintorn-Orman. It went on to acquire more explicitly racial connotations, being dominated in the 1960s and 1970s by self-proclaimed white nationalist organisations that opposed non-white and Asian immigration. The idea stems from belief of white supremacy, the belief that white people are superior to all other races and should therefore dominate society. Examples of such groups in the UK are the National Front (NF), the British Movement (BM) and British National Party (BNP), or the British Union of Fascists (BUF). Since the 1980s, the term has mainly been used to describe those groups, such as the English Defence League, who express the wish to preserve what they perceive to be British culture, and those who campaign against the presence of non-indigenous ethnic minorities.
Right-wing terrorism, hard right terrorism, extreme right terrorism or far-right terrorism is terrorism that is motivated by a variety of different right-wing and far-right ideologies. It can be motivated by Ultranationalism, neo-Nazism, anti-communism, neo-fascism, ecofascism, ethnonationalism, religious nationalism, anti-immigration, anti-semitism, anti-government sentiment, patriot movements, sovereign citizen beliefs, and occasionally, it can be motivated by opposition to abortion, and homophobia. Modern right-wing terrorism largely emerged in Western Europe in the 1970s, and after the Revolutions of 1989 and the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, it emerged in Eastern Europe and Russia.
The Institute for Strategic Dialogue (ISD) is a political advocacy organization founded in 2006 by Sasha Havlicek and George Weidenfeld and headquartered in London, United Kingdom.
Violent extremism is a form of extremism that condones and enacts violence with ideological or deliberate intent, such as religious or political violence. Violent extremist views often conflate with religious and political violence, and can manifest in connection with a range of issues, including politics, religion, and gender relations.
American Muslims often face Islamophobia and racialization due to stereotypes and generalizations ascribed to them. Due to this, Islamophobia is both a product of and a contributor to the United States' racial ideology, which is founded on socially constructed categories of profiled features, or how people seem.
The Counter Extremism Project (CEP) is a non-profit non-governmental organization that combats extremist groups "by pressuring financial support networks, countering the narrative of extremists and their online recruitment, and advocating for strong laws, policies and regulations".
The Proud Boys is a North American far-right, neo-fascist militant organization that promotes and engages in political violence. The group's leaders have been convicted of violently opposing the federal government of the United States, including its constitutionally prescribed transfer of presidential power. It has been called a street gang and was designated as a terrorist group in Canada and New Zealand. The Proud Boys are opposed to left-wing and progressive groups and support Donald Trump, the former president of the United States and current President-elect of the United States. While Proud Boys leadership has denied being a white supremacist organization, the group and some of its members have been connected to white supremacist events, ideologies, and other white-power groups throughout its existence.
The Atomwaffen Division, also known as the National Socialist Resistance Front, was an international far-right extremist and neo-Nazi terrorist network. Formed in 2013 and based in the Southern United States, it expanded across the United States and it had also expanded into the United Kingdom, Argentina, Canada, Germany, the Baltic states, and other European countries. The group was described as a part of the alt-right by some journalists, but it rejected the label and it was considered extreme even within that movement. Atomwaffen was described as "one of the most violent neo-Nazi movements in the 21st century". It was listed as a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), and it was also designated as a terrorist group by multiple governments, including the United Kingdom and Canada.
Antifa is a left-wing anti-fascist and anti-racist political movement in the United States. It consists of a highly decentralized array of autonomous groups that use nonviolent direct action, incivility, or violence to achieve their aims. Antifa political activism includes non-violent methods such as poster and flyer campaigns, mutual aid, speeches, protest marches, and community organizing. Some who identify as antifa also use tactics involving digital activism, doxing, harassment, physical violence, and property damage. Supporters of the movement aim to combat far-right extremists, including neo-Nazis and white supremacists.
Incel is a term associated with an online subculture of people who define themselves as unable to find a romantic or sexual partner despite desiring one, and blame, objectify and denigrate women and girls as a result. The movement is strongly linked to misogyny. Originally coined as "invcel" around 1997 by a queer Canadian female student known as Alana, the spelling had shifted to "incel" by 1999, and the term later rose to prominence in the 2010s, following the influence of misogynistic terrorists Elliot Rodger and Alek Minassian.
On August 3, 2019, a mass shooting occurred at a Walmart store in El Paso, Texas, United States. The gunman, 21-year-old Patrick Wood Crusius, killed 23 people and injured 22 others. The Federal Bureau of Investigation investigated the shooting as an act of domestic terrorism and a hate crime. The shooting has been described as the deadliest attack on Latinos in modern American history.
Misogynist terrorism is terrorism that is motivated by the desire to punish women. It is an extreme form of misogyny—the policing of women's compliance to patriarchal gender expectations. Misogynist terrorism uses mass indiscriminate violence in an attempt to avenge nonconformity with those expectations or to reinforce the perceived superiority of men.
Far-right terrorism in Australia refers to far-right-ideologically influenced terrorism on Australian soil. Far-right extremist groups have existed in Australia since the early 20th century, however the intensity of terrorist activities have oscillated until the present time. A surge of neo-Nazism based terrorism occurred in Australia during the 1960s and the 1970s, carried out primarily by members of the Ustaše organisation. However in the 21st century, a rise in jihadism, the White genocide conspiracy theory, and after effects of the COVID-19 pandemic have fuelled far-right terrorism in Australia. Both the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO) and the Australian Federal Police (AFP) are responsible for responding to far-right terrorist threats in Australia.
The alt-right pipeline is a proposed conceptual model regarding internet radicalization toward the alt-right movement. It describes a phenomenon in which consuming provocative right-wing political content, such as antifeminist or anti-SJW ideas, gradually increases exposure to the alt-right or similar far-right politics. It posits that this interaction takes place due to the interconnected nature of political commentators and online communities, allowing members of one audience or community to discover more extreme groups. This process is most commonly associated with and has been documented on the video platform YouTube, and is largely faceted by the method in which algorithms on various social media platforms function through the process recommending content that is similar to what users engage with, but can quickly lead users down rabbit-holes. The effects of YouTube's algorithmic bias in radicalizing users has been replicated by one study, although two other studies found little or no evidence of a radicalization process.
Terrorgram refers to a decentralized network of Telegram channels and accounts that subscribe to or promote militant accelerationism. Terrorgram channels are neo-fascist in ideology, and regularly share instructions and manuals on how to carry out acts of racially-motivated violence and anti-government terrorism. Terrorgram is a key communications forum for individuals and networks attached to Atomwaffen Division, The Base, and other explicit militant accelerationist groups.
The rhetoric of Donald Trump, the 45th president of the United States and current President-elect, is widely recognized for its unique populist, nationalistic, and confrontational style, which has been the subject of extensive analysis by linguists, political scientists, and communication experts. Known for its direct and unfiltered approach, Trump's rhetoric emphasizes themes of crisis, division, and loyalty, often casting himself as an outsider fighting against a corrupt political establishment. Central to his communication strategy are emotional appeals that resonate with voter insecurity, promises of restoring past national "greatness," and the use of simple, repetitive language that amplifies his message to broad audiences.
Political violence has occurred leading up to the 2024 United States presidential election.
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