Some of the world’s most popular video games are being exploited to radicalize young people. In some cases, gaming-related platforms have become an unlikely setting for recruitment by terrorist and violent extremist groups and other illegal activities online.
The EU-funded GEMS project (Gaming Ecosystem as a Multilayered Security Threat) examines how vulnerable individuals are identified and recruited in online gaming spaces. It has also developed an AI-supported moderation tool to detect extremist activity across the diverse world of gaming and interrupt recruitment attempts in real time. Led by Trinity College, this system could become a valuable tool for law enforcement agencies in Europe and beyond.
The Watchtower platform
Watchtower was designed to support law enforcement analysts in monitoring public online chat platforms such as YouTube Live, Twitch, Reddit, Discord and other gaming and gaming-adjacent chats.
The system is currently being tested under operational conditions and refined in cooperation with the Irish police and other European law enforcement partners, allowing officers to evaluate the tool directly on real public data.
As such, gaming and gaming-adjacent spaces can serve as a ground for early grooming and as a filtering stage before the pre-selected users are redirected elsewhere, such as less moderated or more encrypted platforms and apps. Recruitment can involve a gradual shift from casual participation to deeper ideological engagement and may include movement to other online spaces. With human oversight, Watchtower can help recognise (violent) extremist presence in the gaming ecosystem and help interrupt recruitment attempts in real time.
Understanding vulnerabilities in gaming spaces
The GEMS project sees gaming and adjacent spaces as a largely positive social space for most players, but one that can also be exploited by (violent) extremist and terrorist actors adapting to digital youth cultures. Research shows that radicalisation in gaming environments is rarely direct. More often, it develops gradually through humour, irony, shared symbols, competitive dynamics and tapping into a sense of belonging. An additional issue is gamification of crime and misappropriation of gaming aesthetics for illegal purposes, including terrorism and violent extremism, which makes such content more appealing and understandable to target audience.
Evidence from the project highlights that extremist discourse often appears in the form of everyday discriminatory language rather than overt propaganda, with anti-LGBTQ+, racist and misogynistic content especially prevalent. A key vulnerability lies in the normalisation of such behaviour: when hate is dismissed as “banter” or background toxicity, boundaries of acceptability can shift. Rather than creating separate extremist gaming spaces from the outset, such actors typically embed themselves in existing communities, taking advantage of shared interests, grievances and identity-based ties.
Institutional recognition and response
The issue of radicalisation, including recruitment, in the online gaming ecosystem is institutionally recognised, and concrete actions are already being taken. Across Europe and internationally, governments, public institutions, law enforcement agencies, industry alliances and technology companies, as well as the academia and civil society are responding to the exploitation of gaming environments by (violent) extremist and terrorist actors.
To foster cooperation, the GEMS project initiated the establishment of the European Network Against Gaming Related Extremism (ENgaGE), a cross-sectoral network composed of European police authorities, gaming professionals, community representatives, and civil society. With the Watchtower Platform, the development of research on the sociology of gaming and radicalisation and training materials for law enforcement, GEMS has made an important contribution to efforts to prevent online radicalisation.
The project ran from September 2023 to end of August 2026 and received EUR 2,864,352 in EU funding under the Civil Security for Society cluster of the Horizon Europe programme.
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