The initiative is a collaboration between a handful of organizations. dr. Rachel Kowert, Research Director of Take This, spoke to GameDaily about the funding.

The Department of Homeland Security this week approved a nearly $700,000 grant for a… research the link between video games and extremism.

“Over the past decade, video games have increasingly become the focus of social activity and identity creation for adolescents and young adults,” the grant reads. “Relationships made and nurtured within game ecosystems routinely spill over into the real world and are impactful parts of local communities. Accordingly, extremists have used video games and targeted video game communities for activities ranging from creating propaganda to mobilizing and training terrorists.”

The research will be a joint venture between the Center for Terrorism, Extremism and Counter-Terrorism (CTEC), AI Developer logicallyand Take thisan advocate for positive mental health in the games industry.

The intersection of extremism and gaming communities has been the main research topic for Dr. Rachel Kowert, director of research at Take This. Many popular gaming platforms have become a hotbed of recruitment for violent extremists and white supremacist groupsalthough very little research has been done on this phenomenon.

Preliminary studies have shown a strong link between unmoderated gaming spaces and hate group recruitment, but very little official research has been done on the subject. dr. Kowert has spent years trying to change this, and in a phone conversation with GameDaily, she expressed her excitement at the new DHS funding.

Kowert has worked closely with Alex Newhouse, deputy director at CTEC over the past few years; at this year’s GDC, the two had a chat on the state of extremist behavior in video games. The panel was largely focused on sandbox gaming platforms Roblox and Minecraftas well as Valve’s digital marketplace Steam.

A related statistic with Roblox is the fact that 24% of the players? under 13 years oldand the game is one of the most popular recruitment destinations.

Kowert and Newhouse started with a fairly simple question, Kowert said, “why do games promote extremism?” After all, games are primarily a form of entertainment. However, many are also part of a social network. Think MMOs like World of Warcraft or Final Fantasy XIV and all communication that takes place there. Kowert’s goal is to study the social dynamics of this environment and determine why extremism seems to thrive there.

The pair seized the opportunity to scale up their investigation when DHS announced it would open applications for grant funding, Kowert told GameDaily, and hope the influx can bring more attention to the issue. In fact, that is one of Kowert’s short-term goals: awareness of the link between extremism and games. This, she hopes, will lead to the creation of tools to tackle the root of the problem.

Kowert’s interest in the subject was sparked in part by a survey 2019 of the Anti Defamation League that studied harassment in online games. According to the findings, 79% of all dota 2 players experience some form of intimidation, while 75% of players from counter attack, overwatch, PUBGand League of Legends reported the same. 53% of online players believed they were being targeted because of their race/ethnicity, religion, ability, gender or sexual orientation.

Given these statistics, it is not difficult to associate harassment with extremism. This is the privilege of Kowert and Newhouse as their investigation progresses. The goal is to produce quantitative research that will lead to concerted efforts to tackle the problem. The DHS has clearly seen something worthy of funding, and hopefully the industry will see some sort of reform as a result.

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Sam, the editor-in-chief of GameDaily.biz, is a former freelance game reporter. He has been seen on IGN, PCGamesN, PCGamer, Unwinnable and many more. When he’s not writing about games, he’s probably taking care of his two dogs or pretending to know a lot about craft coffee. Contact Sam by emailing him at sdesatoff@rektglobal.com or follow him Twitter.

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