Details of an alleged foiled school shooting and sadistic acts involving an infant are among “chilling evidence” the Australian Federal Police has shared with a powerful parliamentary committee as security agencies sound the alarm over ”youth radicalisation and manipulation” online.
AFP Assistant Commissioner Sandra Booth warned MPs and senators they “will hear some very confronting content” as she fronted the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security on Wednesday but said it was necessary “because we are facing one of our greatest challenges in history”.
She said AFP Commissioner Krissy Barrett directed her to give examples to “make everyone understand the extent and the severity of the threat”.
Ms Booth began with a counter-terrorism investigation into a “13-year-old boy for allegedly possessing violent extremist material”.
“He was using the social media platform Discord, and during a warrant executed at his home, we allegedly found a notebook that contained plans for a school shooting,” she said.
“This was not in the US – this was in Australia.”
In another example, she outlined the case of a teen charged with using a carriage service for child abuse material.
“It is alleged the teen connected with a sadistic online network to seek his online handle be written across an infant’s face and that infant forced to vape,” she said.
Ms Booth went on to speak more broadly about online networks that promote sadistic exploitation and nihilistic violence, naming The Com and 764.
These networks exist across social media platforms and do not have a single, coherent ideology.
They are instead hotbeds of various extreme ideologies, such as Neo-Nazism and Satanism.
Several countries, including Canada and New Zealand, have designated 764 a terrorist group, while international law enforcement actively try to disrupt the broader Com network.
“Often, they turn desperate victims into perpetrators,” Ms Booth said.
“For example, youth are recording or livestreaming animal crushing, physically or sexually assaulting their siblings to escape the hold their blackmailers have over them.
“They think if they do what they are being asked they will no longer be targeted.”
She said the groups hunt for victims on social media and online games and “many victims are young girls”.
“They are made to feel like they have made a friend, but realistically, they are being groomed and then trapped in a cycle of hurting themselves for the gratification of these online groups,” she said.
More to come