Slide 1 - Title Slide
Hi everyone, today I will be doing my presentation about Stochastic Terrorism.
Slide 2 - What is stochastic terrorism
So, what is stochastic terrorism?
Slide 3 - Let’s Break it Down
So, does anybody know the meaning of the word stochastic? Any mathematicians? Await answer from class Once somebody reasonably defines it, put the definition on screen.
Now for the simpler one, does anybody know how to define terrorism? Await answer from class Once somebody reasonably defines it, put the definition on screen.
Slide 4 - Stochastic Terrorism Is…
Now that we know what both stochastic and terrorism mean, we can put them together and come up with a definition of Stochastic Terrorism. Stochastic terrorism is defined as provoking terroristic acts which are unpredictable, or random in nature. This means that someone or a group of people may say something, which in turn could possibly cause somebody to go out and commit an act of terrorism based on what they said. These stochastic terrorist statements provoke what are called Lone Wolf terrorists, which we will look into deeper later in the presentation, but they are usually committed by an individual, rather than a group. As stated before, these attacks are encouraged by inflammatory rhetoric by notable public figures or communities of people, but the remarks are not quite direct incitement of the act, they provoke the act without telling anybody to do it, giving the person or people involved with making the statement plausible deniability when it comes to having provoked the person who committed the act.
Slide 5 - Organized vs Stochastic Terrorism
So, now let’s take a look into the differences between organized and stochastic terrorism.
Slide 6 - Organized Terrorism
Does anybody know any characteristics of organized terrorism? Answers on Slide:
- Rigid structure
- Terrorist agents are activated by a leader
- Are all affiliated
- United for a certain goal Ask around until you get a few of these, and reveal them.
Organized Terrorist groups have a rigid structure, sort of like a company. There’s the leader or the CEO at the top, with all these different departments down here below them which each have their own jobs. Terrorist agents are activated directly by a leader’s commands. The leader will order the agent to commit an act, and they will do it. All the members are affiliated, again, sort of like a company, they all ‘work’ for the same organization. And typically, the terrorist organizations are united for a certain political goal.
As you can see here, the diagram I have been pointing to is the structure of the Al Qaeda terrorist organization, with a leader on top, and several different departments.
Slide 7 - Stochastic Terrorism
Stochastic Terrorism has some notable differences, as well as some similarities to organized terrorism.
Stochastic Terrorism is structureless. As implied in the name, acts of terrorism derived from stochastic terrorist rhetoric happens unpredictably, however this does not mean that there is never a kind of “leader”. The leader technically isn’t a leader of anything, but they are somebody who’s actions continually and repeatedly lead to lone wolf attacks. There’s usually little to no affiliation between attacks caused by the same stochastic terrorist movement. The most affiliation that attackers tend to have with each other is that they have the same political or ideological beliefs. Terrorists who attack based off of stochastic terrorist rhetoric are considered lone wolves. Lone Wolf terrorists are not DIRECTLY activated by a leader, there may be a “leader figure”, but this figure never directly calls for attacks, they provoke them indirectly.
Slide 8 - Radicalization and Operation
So, let’s move into how stochastic terrorists operate.
Slide 9 - Radicalization: The Starting Point
Radicalization is the first step towards stochastic terrorism. If someone or a group of people wants to get you to attack people for their political goals, they first must get you to believe their same goals. Radicalization can start off with small things, such as stereotypes or “edgy jokes”, but it works up from there. Normalization of these types of stereotypes and jokes in your community, sort of like a toxic workplace situation, leads to actual acts of bias towards the groups that are being joked about, which leads to discrimination, which leads to violence, and eventually if it gets bad enough, genocide, or an eradication of the group you were originally stereotyping or joking about from your group.
Slide 10 - Who uses Instagram
So, I just want to ask a quick few questions, by a show of hands, how many of you use Instagram? Wait for show of hands Statistically, it should be most of you. Now.
Slide 11 - Who knows 6ixbuzz
Now, for those of you who use Instagram, how many of you know of or follow the account “6ixbuzz”? Wait for a show of hands Interesting!
Slide 12 - 6ixbuzz and Misinformation: Radicalization Machine
So for any of you who don’t know, 6ixbuzz describes themselves as the number one culture and entertainment page in Toronto. They post about random, mostly Canadian topics, however, they also frequently post the same types of misinformation that is posted by radicals and stochastic terrorists in order to provoke their audience. I personally believe that the only reason they do this is for engagement, as these inflammatory posts get people to comment. However, the main problem with 6ixbuzz making these kinds of posts is that this type of rhetoric becomes normalized for their followers, acting as a first step into radicalization. Posting misleading headlines which make a group of people look bad or plays on preconceived biases about a group massively helps stochastic terrorists who seek to terrorize that group of people. A good example of how this type of radicalization can spread is actually from this class last year. A student in last year’s debate used a 6ixbuzz article claiming that an Ottawa student was suspended and arrested for stating that there are only 2 genders. This article was brought up in the debate without any fact checking. The headline of the article is not only misleading, but completely misrepresents the situation. The student in the article who was suspended and arrested was not arrested for stating that there are only two genders, they were suspended after several warnings for trying to organize a protest against the two transgender students at their school being able to use the bathroom of their choice. They were suspended, and told that continuing organization of the protest would result in expulsion. The student continued organizing the protest and eventually held it on school property, and that’s when they were arrested for trespassing. 6ixbuzz posting a headline like that can only serve to harm transgender people, and by them posting it, it spread to a room of people who couldn’t have known any better.
Slide 13 - The 3 D’s: How Stochastic Terrorists Cause Harm
During my research about stochastic terrorism, I discovered something I like to call “The 3 D’s of stochastic terrorism”. These 3 concepts are the driving factors that get lone wolf terrorists to act. The first is disgust. Stochastic terrorists use disgust to weaponize their audience to attack their targets. Disgust is a sort of primal instinct, there are strong psychological implications when we see something that disgusts us. Disgust triggers our fight or flight, sometimes we try to avoid things that disgust us, and sometimes we try to attack them. Stochastic terrorists want to get people to act on that fighting instinct by radicalizing them. The next of the two D’s are how stochastic terrorists manufacture disgust for their targets. The second D is Dehumanization. Stochastic terrorists dehumanize their targets by calling them vile things, a few examples are calling queer people groomers or pedophiles, calling indigenous people savages, or calling Jewish people vermin. The last D, the one which in my opinion, seals the deal when it comes to causing violence, is demonization. Stochastic terrorists make their targets seem evil. They apply evil traits, like pedophilia, to their victims, regardless of if they are actually embodying that trait. The application of evil traits like pedophilia invokes a response in people. Nobody likes child predators, and by labelling a group as child predators, it makes people feel like they are on the defensive.
Slide 14 - Lone Wolf Attacks & The Harm that Stochastic Terrorism Causes
To truly see the kinds of violence that stochastic terrorism can cause, we have to look at a few examples. The first of which is LibsOfTiktok.
Slide 15 - LibsofTiktok
Libs of TikTok is an X (twitter) account run by Chaya Raichik with 2.7 million followers, and is arguably the most well-known current major stochastic terrorist figurehead. For many LibsOfTiktok is what immediately comes to mind when Stochastic Terrorism is brought up. Raichik frequently posts about random queer people that she finds online to her audience, and is frequently signal boosted by the sole shareholder of twitter, Elon Musk. This means that her posts are not only being sent out to her 2.7 million followers, but also Musk’s 165 million followers as well, it is also speculated that Musk has priority in the algorithm, but I couldn’t find any conclusive evidence on that, so these posts could be getting pushed to people who don’t even follow either of them. Musk is a paying subscriber of LibsofTiktok, which is practically an endorsement of the account’s behavior and content, as he is in control of the site.
Now, would anybody like to take a guess at how many incidents of violent threats or harassment have been linked to the LibsofTikTok account? Await Answers Correct Answer: 35
LibsOfTiktok has been connected to at least 35 incidents of violent threats or harassment according to a 2022 study by MediaMatters.
Slide 16 - How does LibsofTikTok cause violence?
Raichik repeatedly posts about the queer and transgender groomer conspiracy, which a conspiracy theory that has been around since the late 70s and early 80s starting with Anita Bryant’s “Save Our Children” coalition. The conspiracy theory basically states that LGBTQ+ people are trying to groom children into becoming gay or transgender because queer people “cannot naturally reproduce”. Aside from baselessly calling people groomers, she mixes in a lot of hateful rhetoric to build up disgust for queer people. Raichik also happens to post about organizations or even individual people who just so happen to be queer or support queer people. Most of the organizations or people she happens to target are medical institutions, pride events, and the educational sector (including schools, libraries, and individual teachers and board workers). She not only makes these posts, but actively seeks out and includes identifying information about these people or institutions, such as names, social media accounts, or places of employment. Here’s a tweet from LibsofTiktok, where she quote tweeted a teaching instruction presentation which instructed teachers not to out queer children to their parents, as the results of doing that are unpredictable and could cause the child to be abused or kicked out of the house. Raichik responded to this by saying “More of the groomer training here”. This was in reply to another one of her tweets where she shared the same presentation, Raichik said: “WOW. New staff training for this year from @RoundRockISD instructs teachers not to tell parents if their child comes out as nonbinary or trans because ‘it is potentially dangerous’. @RoundRockISD thinks parents are dangerous.” Raichik identifies the school which did it, priming her followers to attack, and demonizes the school by stating that they “think parents are dangerous.”, and then called them groomers to stir up more disgust. However, Raichik does not only direct her followers to attack institutions. This is another tweet where she posts pictures of a non-binary teacher, tags the school that they work at, and includes their social media handle in the post.
Raichik claims to condemn any threats or harassment that is caused by her posts, but she clearly has no regard for publishing people’s personal identifying information to her massive audience, which leads to them being harassed or their institutions hit with threats.
Slide 17 - VictimsOfTikTok: Who or What is affected by these posts?
According to a MediaMatters study published at the end of 2022, targets of LibsOfTiktok who have received confirmed harassment and threats include:
- At least 24 United States hospitals, with a notable instance being the Boston Children’s Hospital, which was hit with bomb threats shortly after LibsOfTiktok posted about them.
- At least 18 schools, libraries or educators. An anonymous individual who claimed to be targeted by Raichik stated on Matt Bernstein’s podcast that after the post was made, they received hundreds of death threats, so much so that they left their teaching job for fear of their own, as well as the students and the school’s safety, and also attempted suicide due to the harassment that they were receiving.
- At least 7 pride events. On the bottom are a few headlines about some of the threats that were received after posts from LibsOfTiktok. Including schools reporting bomb threats, which reminds me.
Slide 18 - LibsOfTiktok Copycat account posts our school’s GSA mural
Recently our school was hit with a bomb threat, and since I knew about the several bomb threats that schools had received, I decided to search up Martingrove on twitter, and I actually found a sort of Canadian LibsofTiktok copycat account which posted about the GSA’s mural which was completed last June. Their following is small and nothing resulted from this post as far as I am aware, other than some gross comments. It’s just something to think about.
Slide 19 - Lone Wolves
LibsofTiktok is a prime example of a strange blend of organized terrorism and stochastic terrorism. Raichik acts as the leader figure for her followers, and she directs where to send threats and violence to, but she never actually calls for any violence, giving her a semblance of plausible deniability. LibsofTiktok is a great way of understanding how Stochastic Terrorism works, by comparing it to organized terrorism. Now I’ll be moving on to Lone Wolf terrorists, and stochastic terrorism that is caused by group thinking, rather than a certain person directing actions. Lone Wolf Attacks are defined as terror attacks committed by a person with no affiliation to any organized terror groups. This is true for any attack committed as a result of online radicalization, most notably stochastic terrorist rhetoric.
Slide 20 - Conspiracy Theories & Lone Wolf Attacks
We saw the use of Conspiracy Theories with LibsofTiktok and the groomer conspiracy theory to weaponize disgust, but I’d like to look a little deeper into a Lone Wolf Attack that happened as a direct result of a man’s belief in a conspiracy theory. QAnon is a conspiracy theory, that without getting into the nitty gritty details, essentially states that the world is run by satanic democrat pedophiles. The conspiracy theory is originated from an anonymous message board, where a user (or users) would post things relating to the conspiracy theory, and tag themselves as Q. One of the people that was named as an alleged satanic pedophile by Q was United States Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (yes, the insider trading one, the insider trading incident is probably what caused this). On October 28, 2022, a man broke into Pelosi’s house wielding a hammer, and shouting “Where’s Nancy! Where’s Nancy!?!“. He proceeded to attack her husband, Paul Pelosi with the hammer. After the incident, blog entries by the attacker were found where he posted about QAnon, along with other right wing conspiracy theories, such as the 2020 Election Fraud theory which led to the January 6th Capitol Insurrection.
Slide 21 - Incel Ideology & Lone Wolf Attacks
Now I’d like to focus in on the ideology of incels to point out how just an ideology can result in violence. The term incel is derived from “involuntary celibates”, but it has come to describe a group of people who are typically women-hating due to not being able to have romantic or sexual relationships with women. They gather on forums and discuss about how much they hate women, or how they hate the “chads” (men who are able to find success in dating) are stealing all the women from them. They use frankly gross language, such as referring to women as femoids (derived from female humanoids). This use of language and hatred of women and society culminates in incels radicalizing each other. Incels are also connected as a part of the manosphere ring of content, which is online content which is usually misogynistic, and relates to ‘dating and relationship advice’ for young men, which is how some men become radicalized by incel ideology.
Slide 22 - Incel Ideology & Lone Wolf Attacks (cont.)
A concept known as the black-pill is frequently mentioned in Incel Ideology. It relates to the ultimatum given in The Matrix, where the protagonist is prompted with a choice, take the blue pill, and live in the simulation, oblivious to what is really happening, or take the red pill to wake up. The black pill is not in the original movie, but incels coined it as a term for waking up to the fact that “they will always be an incel”, and that “no woman will ever want to date them” (which is certainly true if they keep thinking things like this), essentially meaning acceptance of complete hopelessness. This acceptance of hopelessness turns to anger with all the hate and disgust that is built up by the rhetoric of themselves and their peers, which leads to them committing deadly attacks against women. A major example of this took place right here in Toronto when in 2018, Alek Minassian drove his van through 26 people, killing 11 and injuring 15. Before committing this attack, Minassian posted on facebook, ending the post with “We will overthrow all the Chads and Stacys! All hail the Supreme Gentleman Elliot Rodger!“. Rodger was another incel killer, who has become a mythical figure in incel circles since his attack. Not only does incel ideology and rhetoric inspire these attacks, but the attackers usually leave behind a manifesto, detailing their motivations. The incel forums that these guys participate in hail them as heroes, and share the manifestos between each other, further radicalizing themselves, and only inspiring more deadly attacks to come.
Slide 23 - What can we learn from these incidents?
Stochastic terrorist rhetoric is very inflammatory, and as we saw in every case, used disgust, dehumanization, and demonization to provoke people into attacking people, groups of people, or institutions. We also saw that the attacks could be against named targeted individuals, which we saw in the Pelosi attack and some of the LibsOfTiktok related attacks, against a general group of people, which we saw in the incel attacks, and also against institutions, which we saw with LibsOfTiktok related attacks.
Slide 24 - How can we mitigate the effects of Stochastic Terrorism
So, after all that heavy discussion, I’d like to ask two questions, starting off with, How can we mitigate the effects of Stochastic Terrorism?
My answer is to limit the reach that large stochastic terrorist accounts like LibsofTiktok have, as well as help better educate people about critical thinking when it comes to online reading and interaction. Making sure people know to fact-check information can help reduce radicalization and make people more rational thinkers.
Slide 25 - Should we start criminally charging people who encourage terrorist action via Stochastic Terrorism? If yes, how can we go about this?
The next question is: Should we start criminally charging people who encourage terrorist action via Stochastic Terrorism? If yes, how can we go about this?
My answer is yes, if we are able to. It’s a very complicated subject, since it’s not always clear or even possible to track down the source of who primed the attacker to do what they did. But in cases like LibsofTiktok, where there is a clear trend of whenever she posts something, harassment and threats following it, I think something ought to be done.
Slide 26 - Concluding Thoughts
Some concluding thoughts:
- Stochastic Terrorism is a serious threat to the most marginalized communities in our society.
- Online radicalization and misinformation can spread the harmful rhetoric of stochastic terrorists, resulting in more real world violence.
Works Cited
GENERAL
STOCHASTIC TERRORISM DEFINITION: https://www.dictionary.com/browse/stochastic-terrorism GENERAL STOCHASTIC TERRORISM STUFF: https://presswatchers.org/2022/08/the-phrase-youre-looking-for-is-stochastic-terrorism/ DISGUST, DEHUMANIZATION, DEMONIZATION: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-stochastic-terrorism-uses-disgust-to-incite-violence/ PYRAMID OF HATE: https://www.adl.org/sites/default/files/documents/pyramid-of-hate.pdf
6IXBUZZ
STUDENT ARRESTED FOR SAYING THERE ARE ONLY TWO GENDERS POST: https://www.instagram.com/p/CoftKkDuXZu/ MUSK SIGNAL BOOSTING MISINFO ABOUT SAME CASE: https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1629285698879488000?t=3hljYTwGgJaEUD-jw2HyJg&s=19
LIBS OF TIKTOK
ELON MUSK SIGNALBOOSTING https://twitter.com/search?q=(from%3Aelonmusk)%20(to%3ALibsofTikTok)&src=typed_query&f=live GROOMER TWEET: https://twitter.com/libsoftiktok/status/1690043523788345344 NONBINARY TEACHER TWEET: https://twitter.com/libsoftiktok/status/1727705277217095960?s=20 MEDIAMATTERS STUDY: https://www.mediamatters.org/libs-tiktok/timeline-impact-libs-tiktok-told-through-educators-health-care-providers-librarians COPYCAT TWEET: https://twitter.com/ChanLPfa/status/1680086694962384899 INFORMATION ABOUT LIBSOFTIKTOK AND THREATS: https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/investigations/2023/11/02/libs-of-tiktok-tweets-death-bomb-threats/71409213007/ SCHOOLS RECEIVING BOMB THREATS: https://www.advocate.com/news/libs-of-tiktok-bomb-threats SCHOOLS RECEIVING BOMB THREATS (MORE): https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2022/09/02/lgbtq-threats-hospitals-libs-of-tiktok/ SCHOOLS RECEIVING BOMB THREATS (MORE): https://www.vice.com/en/article/bvj5dq/schools-report-bomb-threats-following-libs-of-tiktok-anti-lgbtq-posts GENERAL INFORMATION ABOUT HARM CAUSED TO PEOPLE BY LIBSOFTIKTOK: https://www.hrc.org/press-releases/new-human-rights-campaign-foundation-report-online-hate-real-world-violence-are-inextricably-linked
QANON
WHAT IS QANON: https://www.nytimes.com/article/what-is-qanon.html PELOSI ATTACKER POSTED ABOUT QANON: https://apnews.com/article/california-donald-trump-san-francisco-47c103cfe696df9faf0e57e1c7dd4f10 PELOSI ATTACK: https://www.cnn.com/2022/10/28/politics/paul-pelosi-attack/index.html
INCELS
MANOSPHERE, TERMINOLOGY & BACKGROUND INFO: https://www.mccaininstitute.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/incel-and-misogynist-violent-extremism-read-ahead-materials-august-2.pdf TORONTO VAN ATTACK: https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/2018-toronto-van-attack INCEL KILLERS HELD AS HEROES, MINASSIAN FACEBOOK POST: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-43892189 BLACKPILL: https://www.newamerica.org/political-reform/reports/misogynist-incels-and-male-supremacism/red-pill-to-black-pill/ MINASSIAN INCEL: https://toronto.ctvnews.ca/explaining-incel-slang-used-by-alek-minassian-during-interrogation-1.4612905 INCEL IDEOLOGY INSPIRING ATTACKS: https://www.vox.com/world/2018/4/25/17277496/incel-toronto-attack-alek-minassian INCELS AS AN UPCOMING DOMESTIC TERRORIST THREAT: https://www.lawfaremedia.org/article/incels-americas-newest-domestic-terrorism-threat