The challenge is made harder because the profile of risk is shifting. The risks associated with security, including violence and extremism, are no longer always about a structured ideology, clear group membership, or well‑defined doctrine. Instead, these risks are fragmented, personalised, and even nihilistic forms of violence and mobilisation, where the trigger may be grievances and resentment rather than a traditional ideological manifesto.
These evolving threats increasingly play out across digital platforms, where rapid communication and viral reach can turn isolated online discussions into coordinated real-world actions. In today’s shifting threat landscape, online platforms, from X and Reddit, where messages can reach thousands instantly, to semi-private spaces, such as Discord, serve as both amplifiers and incubators of increasing violence.
Dangers in the digital playground
Discord, as an example, has grown far beyond its origins as a gamer chat platform, and now hosts millions across public servers, community hubs, and interest-based groups. This has led to the platform’s misuse in recent years, transforming it into a space where discussions about extremism and violence occur with relative ease. Research shows that the platform has repeatedly been used by extremist groups to coordinate protests, share propaganda, and circulate ideological materials.
For instance, in the US and UK, researchers have identified that extremists are increasingly targeting teenagers through livestream gaming platforms such as Discord. Vulnerable youths are funnelled from mainstream social media to sites such as Discord, where unmoderated chats and livestreams create “digital playgrounds” for extremist activity. In the US, since August 2023, at least three plots involving juveniles communicating on Discord or other gaming platforms were disrupted. More broadly, Western countries disrupted over 20 juvenile-driven plots between January and November 2024. Extremist groups that have been deplatformed, meaning removed from major online platforms, have become more sophisticated, focusing on building rapport rather than overtly preaching ideology.
Following major incidents, Discord expanded its safety efforts in recent years, building out its Trust and Safety team and introducing new tools to detect harmful content, but the platform still faces significant challenges. With millions of private and community servers, much of the activity on Discord takes place in spaces that are not continuously monitored by Discord staff. While automated tools and user reports help enforce rules, much of the day‑to‑day moderation in these servers falls to volunteer moderators, which can make comprehensive oversight challenging.
The risks associated with such platform misuse are intensified by a broader societal trend. In the US, political violence has risen sharply, with more than 520 plots or attacks in the first half of 2025 alone – resulting in 96 deaths and 329 injuries – a nearly 40% increase from 2024. Many of these incidents appear to have been preceded or reinforced by online coordination, underscoring how digital interactions can translate into real-world harm.
A multi-platform challenge
Discord is not the only platform facing these challenges. As moderation tightens in one space, harmful networks often migrate to others. Telegram is another such example. It is a messaging platform offering encrypted chats, large group chats, and public channels, making it a space for rapid, wide-reaching communication. Telegram’s structure allows communities to form around shared interests, but the combination of encryption, limited oversight, and large networks means content can spread quickly without being seen by moderators. While the platform provides legitimate spaces for discussion, it has also been misused to coordinate harmful activity. In the UK, networks on Telegram have been used to organise real-world events, often leveraging automated accounts and AI-generated content to amplify their reach. Some of these networks have also been linked to foreign influence campaigns, including attempts from abroad to encourage activity. Although Telegram removes channels that breach its terms of service, the platform’s encrypted nature makes proactive monitoring challenging, leaving authorities and communities exposed.
A recent study by researchers at George Washington University found that “online hate thrives and survives on smaller social media platforms”, with coordinated campaigns in the US often originating on sites such as Telegram and Discord before spreading to larger, mainstream networks. Major social platforms such as X can enable the rapid spread of content and amplify messages first shared in more niche corners of the internet to larger audiences, where they can be seen by millions within minutes.
Offline echoes
This interconnected digital landscape underscores a critical point: the divide between online interactions and offline harm has never been more porous. Harmful content can spread rapidly, whether amplified by viral platforms such as X or shared in encrypted spaces such as Telegram and Discord, making it harder than ever to separate digital activity from its offline consequences. From influencing public sentiment to driving mobilisation, what starts as a conversation can quickly escalate into action. In this environment, identifying patterns early, especially before they spill across the digital–physical boundary is crucial.
Building strong monitoring and intelligence capabilities is no longer a reactive measure; it is an essential safeguard. For organisations and high-profile individuals, understanding how narratives move across platforms helps anticipate emerging risks, protect people, and prevent harm before it happens. As online and offline realities continue to converge, proactive monitoring becomes not just a tool for awareness, but a pillar of resilience in the digital age.
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Digitalis
We firmly believe that the internet should be available and accessible to anyone, and are committed to providing a website that is accessible to the widest possible audience, regardless of circumstance and ability.
To fulfill this, we aim to adhere as strictly as possible to the World Wide Web Consortium’s (W3C) Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.1 (WCAG 2.1) at the AA level. These guidelines explain how to make web content accessible to people with a wide array of disabilities. Complying with those guidelines helps us ensure that the website is accessible to all people: blind people, people with motor impairments, visual impairment, cognitive disabilities, and more.
This website utilizes various technologies that are meant to make it as accessible as possible at all times. We utilize an accessibility interface that allows persons with specific disabilities to adjust the website’s UI (user interface) and design it to their personal needs.
Additionally, the website utilizes an AI-based application that runs in the background and optimizes its accessibility level constantly. This application remediates the website’s HTML, adapts Its functionality and behavior for screen-readers used by the blind users, and for keyboard functions used by individuals with motor impairments.
If you’ve found a malfunction or have ideas for improvement, we’ll be happy to hear from you. You can reach out to the website’s operators by using the following email webrequests@digitalis.com
Our website implements the ARIA attributes (Accessible Rich Internet Applications) technique, alongside various different behavioral changes, to ensure blind users visiting with screen-readers are able to read, comprehend, and enjoy the website’s functions. As soon as a user with a screen-reader enters your site, they immediately receive a prompt to enter the Screen-Reader Profile so they can browse and operate your site effectively. Here’s how our website covers some of the most important screen-reader requirements, alongside console screenshots of code examples:
Screen-reader optimization: we run a background process that learns the website’s components from top to bottom, to ensure ongoing compliance even when updating the website. In this process, we provide screen-readers with meaningful data using the ARIA set of attributes. For example, we provide accurate form labels; descriptions for actionable icons (social media icons, search icons, cart icons, etc.); validation guidance for form inputs; element roles such as buttons, menus, modal dialogues (popups), and others. Additionally, the background process scans all of the website’s images and provides an accurate and meaningful image-object-recognition-based description as an ALT (alternate text) tag for images that are not described. It will also extract texts that are embedded within the image, using an OCR (optical character recognition) technology. To turn on screen-reader adjustments at any time, users need only to press the Alt+1 keyboard combination. Screen-reader users also get automatic announcements to turn the Screen-reader mode on as soon as they enter the website.
These adjustments are compatible with all popular screen readers, including JAWS and NVDA.
Keyboard navigation optimization: The background process also adjusts the website’s HTML, and adds various behaviors using JavaScript code to make the website operable by the keyboard. This includes the ability to navigate the website using the Tab and Shift+Tab keys, operate dropdowns with the arrow keys, close them with Esc, trigger buttons and links using the Enter key, navigate between radio and checkbox elements using the arrow keys, and fill them in with the Spacebar or Enter key.Additionally, keyboard users will find quick-navigation and content-skip menus, available at any time by clicking Alt+1, or as the first elements of the site while navigating with the keyboard. The background process also handles triggered popups by moving the keyboard focus towards them as soon as they appear, and not allow the focus drift outside of it.
Users can also use shortcuts such as “M” (menus), “H” (headings), “F” (forms), “B” (buttons), and “G” (graphics) to jump to specific elements.
We aim to support the widest array of browsers and assistive technologies as possible, so our users can choose the best fitting tools for them, with as few limitations as possible. Therefore, we have worked very hard to be able to support all major systems that comprise over 95% of the user market share including Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox, Apple Safari, Opera and Microsoft Edge, JAWS and NVDA (screen readers), both for Windows and for MAC users.
Despite our very best efforts to allow anybody to adjust the website to their needs, there may still be pages or sections that are not fully accessible, are in the process of becoming accessible, or are lacking an adequate technological solution to make them accessible. Still, we are continually improving our accessibility, adding, updating and improving its options and features, and developing and adopting new technologies. All this is meant to reach the optimal level of accessibility, following technological advancements. For any assistance, please reach out to webrequests@digitalis.com