TxSSC
Radicalized Communities: Decoding Digital Leakage to Prevent Real-World Tragedy Lunch & Learn
Join us for these Lunch and Learn sessions to explore the connection between online radicalized communities and violent behaviors, with a focus on understanding key patterns, warning signs, and digital leakage. Through case walkthroughs handled by the SST Threat Analyst Team, participants will examine how extremist spaces, including True Crime Communities (TCC), 09A, 764, Terrorgram, and other fringe online communities can foster radicalization and contribute to the pathways to violence.
Each monthly session will focus on a critical aspect of these communities, providing in-depth insight into how harmful ideologies are reinforced, how individuals are influenced and mobilized, and how online activity can translate into real-world violence. Understanding these digital communities is a necessary component of an effective school behavioral threat assessment and integral to violence prevention efforts.
Designed for Safety or School Behavioral Threat Assessment (S/SBTA) teams across Texas, this series will provide practical knowledge, current case examples, and actionable tools to help identify, assess, and respond to emerging threats of radicalization in today's evolving digital environment.
Session Topics
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Session 1 Gaming Platforms, Recruitment, and Vulnerable Youth
Understanding Radicalization Risks Within Sandbox Gaming Environments
Sandbox games are video games that include platforms such as Roblox and Minecraft, where users can create and share their own digital environments. This Lunch and Learn will examine how Nihilistic Violent Extremist (NVE) groups may use gaming environments for recruitment, propaganda, and identifying high-risk or vulnerable youth, including the introduction of ideologies associated with 764 and Spawnism through user-generated content and private communications. Using SST case examples, participants will gain practical insights and resources to support Digital Threat Assessments involving students' gaming platform activity.
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Session 2 The True Crime Community (TCC) and the Pathways to Violence
Examining Notoriety, Fixation, and Emerging Digital Leakage
The True Crime Community (TCC) can serve as an entry point for High Risk and Vulnerable Youth (HRVY) seeking belonging, identity, or, in some cases, notoriety through exposure to violent offenders and past tragic events. While many individuals engage with TCC content in non-worrisome ways, this Lunch and Learn will examine how some online communities glorify violence, idolize mass killers, and create pathways toward radicalization and violent behavior. Participants will gain insight into emerging digital leakage and strategies for school behavioral threat assessment teams and early intervention.
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Session 3 Self-Harm Communities, High Risk/Vulnerable Youth, and Online Exploitation
Understanding #EDTWT, #SHEDTWT, and Targeted Recruitment and Exploitation Tactics
Eating Disorder Twitter (EDTWT) and Self-Harm Eating Disorder Twitter (SHEDTWT) are online communities where content related to self-harm and disorders can become normalized, reinforced, and, at times, glorified. This Lunch and Learn will examine how Nihilistic Violent Extremist (NVE) groups seek out these spaces to target vulnerable youth, using coercion and psychological manipulation to exploit existing vulnerabilities. Participants will explore how these communities operate, how youth are being approached by groups such as 764, and key strategies for school behavioral threat assessment teams and early intervention.
Please Note: This session is open to public ISDs, open-enrollment charter schools, junior colleges, law enforcement, and state agencies that support Texas schools. Vendors and contractors are not permitted to register for this session.
Not eligible for TCOLE credit.
All virtual sessions will be provided through the Zoom platform. Once you are registered and confirmed, a direct Zoom link will be sent to you 1–2 business days prior to the session date. TxSSC prohibits the use of AI notetakers during live virtual sessions.
A Certificate of Participation will not be issued for this session.
Special Accommodations
Please submit all special accommodations request(s) via email to txssc_radcom@txstate.edu no later than two weeks prior to the session.
Current Sessions
Training contact & certificate
For more information about the Radicalized Communities: Decoding Digital Leakage to Prevent Real-World Tragedy Lunch & Learn Sessions, please email txssc_radcom@txstate.edu.