Australian girls are being ‘hounded’ by online gangs to commit violent acts

Australian girls are being stalked by online crime networks and coerced into acts of violence – against themselves, their siblings or pets – in a “twisted type of gamification”, police have warned.

A new taskforce has been set up to help global authorities deal with this “new and troubling front in traditional gender-based violence”, Australian Federal Police (AFP) Commissioner Chrissy Barrett will say in a speech on Wednesday.

Three people have already been arrested in Australia and another nine around the world.

It is not clear what the acts were carried out by the targets, but Ms Barrett said the alleged perpetrators held violent extremist views and wanted to hurt people “for fun”.

Aged in their late teens or early 20s and largely of Western origin, they recruit pre-teen or teenage girls through gaming platforms like Roblox or messaging apps like Discord and Telegram.

The boys and men – whom Ms Barrett calls “criminals” – subscribe to a variety of ideologies, including nihilism, sadism, Nazism and Satanism.

“These groups have a similar culture of multiplayer, culture of online gaming, and they hunt, stalk and recruit victims from a number of online platforms,” ​​she will say in the speech, adding that they may not fully understand the consequences of their behavior.

“People’s motivation on these networks is not financial, nor is it for sexual gratification – it’s just for their entertainment, for fun or to be popular online.”

Almost 60 alleged offenders have been identified in Australia alone, Ms Barrett says, and the AFP is working with other Five Eyes countries – the US, UK, New Zealand and Canada – to target the groups.

It comes as Australia prepares to introduce the world’s first social media ban for children under 16, aimed at minimizing online harm. However, gaming and messaging platforms are exempt from the new laws, which take effect in December.