Lone-Actor Terrorism

Abstract

.This chapter explores the social-psychological forces that destructive/authoritarian cults use as they apply to lone-actor terrorists influenced online. The authors contrast the methods used by authoritarian religious, political, commercial, and therapy groups to show that virtual sources—most notably the World Wide Web—can replace in-person recruitment and inclusion. These lone-actor terrorists adopted a worldview and became part of a virtual society. This virtual social bond can be as powerful as a real social bond. The authors consider case examples to show the dynamics of exploitative persuasion in the build-up to their violence. The BITE model of authoritarian control and influence continuum are presented as ways to evaluate undue influence.

Assessing and reporting leaking of violent intent: Influences of perpetrator and witness characteristics

“…Finally, the willingness to respond increased with the strength of the indicators for radicalization (Parker et al, 2021). Still, only 28% out of 74 lone-actor terrorists were reported to the police (Hassan et al, 2021) and witnesses only engaged law enforcement authorities in emergency situations (Gleicher et al, 2020) and as a last resort (Grossman, 2019;Thomas et al, 2017). Because the law enforcement authorities often depend on information about leaking from the general public (Amman et al, 2017), reporting behavior should be enhanced.…”

“…Prior announcements of such offenses ("leaking") are an important starting point for thwarting these attacks, because they were noticed by the social environment of later perpetrators in all or almost all cases (Bondü, 2012;Dudenhoefer et al, 2021). Often, however, leaking was neither reported to the police nor otherwise responded to (Hassan et al, 2021). It is unclear which factors influence whether witnesses consider leaking to be serious, that is, likely to be put into action, and are willing to report or prosecute it.…”