Overview
- On November 13, the EU Internet Referral Unit referred 5,408 jihadist, 1,070 violent right-wing, and 105 racist or xenophobic links found across gaming and gaming-adjacent services.
- Authorities in Denmark, Finland, Germany, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Portugal, Spain and the U.K. took part in the coordinated Referral Action Day.
- Investigators report tactics such as re-enacting attacks in 3D gameplay, adding chants or emojis to edited clips, and disseminating them on mainstream social networks, with some streams used to recruit minors or broadcast real violence.
- Illicit material was identified on live-streaming platforms, video-on-demand libraries, community forums, and hybrid gaming storefronts with social features, complicating detection.
- Europol emphasizes that referrals do not directly remove content, with takedowns driven by platform rules or one-hour national orders under EU law, and it plans further transparency reporting on these efforts.