On Monday, the US DOJ announced the arrest of two leaders of Terrorgram Collective, a violent neo-Nazi group on Telegram. The group has been a key agitator for far-right violence for years and one ISD has been researching continually.
In 2020, we published ‘A Safe Space to Hate: White Supremacist Mobilisation on Telegram’, which analyzed the groups that Terrorgram would grow from. In that report, we found over 200 groups using Telegram to glorify terrorism, spread extremist ideology, and call for violence. Many disbanded, but from their ashes, Terrorgram emerged.
Terrorgram became one of the most radical groups in the ecosystem. Several killings, including a 2022 shooting outside a Bratislava LGBTQ bar, were linked to the group, which praised the attackers.
At the start of 2024, we released an explainer on ‘Saints Culture’, a trend deeply connected to Terrorgram. The trend glorifies individuals who commit violence in the name of white supremacy dubbing them “Saints.” Earlier this year, when Terrorgram became the first online group to be proscribed as a terrorist organization by the UK, we published a dispatch analyzing how effective traditional counterterrorism policies are against nebulous groups like this.
Just weeks before the most recent arrests, we released an investigation outlining how Terrorgram was laundering its message by posing as more mainstream channels, such as a fake Steve Bannon War Room channel. This research was featured by The Guardian in an article on how Terrorgram's laundering tactics work and whether they are successful.
While the arrests are certainly a blow to Terrorgram, and may eventually lead to the group going quiet, there continue to be bad actors online radicalizing people and agitating for violence.
We here at ISD look forward to continuing to shine a light on these dark spaces. https://ow.ly/sqeU50Tm2xK