Children encountering extremism at 'disturbing' rate, inquiry told

Antisemitism royal commission told youth radicalisation rates are increasing In short: The Department of Home Affairs has told the antisemitism royal commission that more young people are engaging with extremist material. Counter-terrorism coordinator Brendan Dowling told the inquiry of a TikTok pilot which redirected high-risk children to support networks. He says programs to counter violent extremism are "critically important" to crack down on radicalisation in the community. Children at an increasingly young age are engaging with violent extremist material at a "disturbing" rate, Australia's counter-terrorism coordinator says. The Department of Home Affairs' Brendan Dowling was appointed counter-terrorism coordinator earlier this year after the Royal Commission on Antisemitism and Social Cohesion recommended making the role full time. Mr Dowling works in collaboration with federal, state and territory governments and law enforcement agencies to coordinate a nationally--consistent response to counter-terrorism and violent extremism threats. The commission has previously heard children as young as 10 are eligible to be referred to voluntary countering violent extremism programs in some jurisdictions in response to current trends. Fronting the royal commission on Tuesday, Mr Dowling said this was consistent with Department of Home Affairs data. "The trends are disturbing," he said. "The rates of youth radicalisation … we see an increasing number of younger people engaging with extremist material. "It's often across a range of ideologies … whether it be neo-Nazi material, white supremacist material, anti-government material, jihadi material." Mr Dowling said the trends pointed to countering violent extremism programs as becoming "critically important" in addressing radicalisation in the community. "When you are talking about a person at that [young], age a law enforcement response is sometimes going to be the right response but in many cases, a [countering violent extremism] intervention outside of the law enforcement domain might be a far more appropriate response for a child who is engaged in extremist material," he said. Risk of violent extremist material 'very real' The commission heard hundreds of people were referred to countering violent extremism programs each quarter, but a large proportion were assessed as better suited to other treatment and diversion initiatives such as those related to mental health interventions. Mr Dowling said the Diversions Australia pilot program, which ran from January to May this year, was an example of how social media and gaming platforms could work alongside counter-terrorism agencies to disrupt a young person's progression to radicalisation. "[Social media platforms] are a vector for people being able to reach violent extremist material," he said. As part of the pilot, users who searched for or engaged with violent extremist content on TikTok were presented with a pop-up inviting them to connect with case managers who could help them disengage with that material and related ideologies. The commission heard over the five-month pilot, more than 6,500 users connected to the pilot site and about 790 of those engaged with the pop-up. About 12 of those progressed to having conversations with case managers or practitioners. Mr Dowling said the data was a "positive indicator of the reach of the program", which he said he believed was a world-first. "While it might seem like a small number are then engaging more deeply, if those people are higher risk individuals, then those are positive indicators of the types of people that are being picked up through that service," he said. "I'm not aware that this type of program has been tried anywhere else in the world. "There is enough evidence there to indicate this is a worthwhile undertaking and that it is worth looking at expanding to further social media platforms." Mr Dowling said there were discussions underway with Roblox to expand the program to the popular gaming service. "We know that as a platform where there is a lot of user-generated content, the risk of violent extremist material or communications is very real," he said.