Radical Roots: Extremism and Internet Culture

How does an adventurous, open-minded, well-travelled young bloke get interested in nationalism... and then in Western supremacy... and then white pride... Until he becomes so obsessed with protecting Western Civilization from Islam, that he shoots nearly a hundred innocent Muslims and livestreams the massacre to cheering racists around the world?

The official government line is that the 2019 Christchurch mosque shooter was a lone wolf. The killer himself cultivated this image. But the movement that radicalised him is a complex network of persuasion. It starts with goofy alt-right memes. It moves on to far-right forums like 4Chan & 8Chan. And it expresses itself in real-world groups like the white supremacist "migrant hunters" with whom the Christchurch shooter embedded in central and eastern Europe.

Joey Watson is a young investigative journalist who's been painstakingly exploring the far-right internet swamp - and travelling to Serbia, Austria and Bulgaria - to retrace the Christchurch terrorist's radicalisation. Joey and Josh discuss how immigration, nationalism, Islam, bigotry and the internet are being built into an ideological powder keg... and how we might defuse it.