Social media radicalising regional youth

Experts say media literacy is key to combatting the rise of youth extremism. Video by Sophia Baker.

Transcript

00:00Governments around the world are concerned about youth radicalisation, online radicalisation

00:08and the rise of new mixed ideologies.

00:11Breaking news from the Australian state of Queensland where several police officers have

00:16been shot.

00:17You will not replace us!

00:19You will not replace us!

00:21AGO has decided to return Australia's national terrorism threat level from possible to probable.

00:30I can't tip the f*** button!

00:37Young regional people are increasingly at the forefront of the global misinformation

00:42crisis experts say.

00:44Regional Australia is really increasingly at the front line of a lot of these challenges.

00:48It's not accidental.

00:50It's carefully planned.

00:51It's algorithms.

00:52There's a lot of psychology that goes behind it.

00:54And so the war that we can show young people is that war that they can start to go through

01:00on the continent.

01:02This targeted misinformation is leading to more young people becoming radicalised than

01:07ever before.

01:08Algorithms on sites like Facebook, X, Instagram and TikTok promote sensational content, amplifying

01:16extremist views and creating echo chambers that are hard to avoid.

01:20Coming across lots of different, often extreme ideas and belief systems.

01:24And that ties in many respects to their own personal experiences at the moment.

01:28Cost of living crisis, housing affordability crisis, coming out of COVID.

01:32There's definitely an anger and anxiety out there in the community.

01:36And these extremist ideas often tap into that.