The Belfast riots: how the manosphere is directing young white men towards political extremism

On Monday evening, Haid Alodid, a Sudanese man, was caught on camera stabbing Stephen Ogilvie in East Belfast. The clip was shared on social media by figures such as Tommy Robinson. It quickly went viral.

By Tuesday evening, reports of unrest in parts of Belfast began to emerge, with footage showing masked men marching into the streets of the city, smashing windows, kicking in doors and setting houses and buses alight. News reports suggested they were targeting the residences of ethnic minorities.

The violence continued into Wednesday evening, spreading fear across immigrant communities in the city. Other English and Scottish cities also experienced some unrest, although it was mostly peaceful.

These uprisings have occurred in light of increasingly hostile and hateful rhetoric on immigration perpetuated by politicians and the media. But there is more to these riots than racial prejudice and ethno-nationalism.  

A Wired investigation has reportedly found that the Active Club movement, a US-based white supremacist network, used its Ulster Youth Branch to incite young men to take to the streets in Belfast on the social media platform Telegram. One of their posts allegedly read: “To the men of the UK: You must harden yourselves and work together. Make them terrified, they are trapped on an island with you. Reignite your flame.”

The Active Club movement is an American network of neofascist fight clubs, consisting of a growing web of youth groups. These groups purposefully attract young boys between the ages of 15 and 18 interested in fitness and mixed martial arts, swaying them towards traditional versions of masculinity grounded in physical and mental strength and directing them towards ethno-nationalist ideologies.

Online groups such as the Active Club movement, which could be identified as being part of a sprawling network of online communities characterised by anti-feminist and misogynistic content, often referred to as the manosphere, can become getaways to political extremism.

An empirical study from the University of Vienna has documented how online communities in the manosphere can become access points to the alt-right, as exposure to sexist content online boosts contact with far-right content over time.

In her book “Men Who Hate Women”, Laura Bates, founder of the Everyday Sexism Project, finds that these communities prey on the insecurities of young boys, radicalising them to hate women and often becoming an entry point to extreme right-wing ideologies.

She also foregrounds the historic correlation between misogyny and white nationalism, which explains the overlap between male chauvinism and white supremacy in the manosphere.

Indeed, as explained by white nationalist academic F. Roger Devlin in his book “Sexual Utopia in Power”, feminism poses a threat to the very existence of white people, as it is believed that white women who have the right to choose are less likely to procreate with white men.

This is why Bates argues that it is unsurprising that many white nationalists who have committed mass murders have forged manifestos rooted in misogyny, further evidencing the inextricable link between the growing manosphere and right-wing extremism.

For example, white supremacist and neo-Nazi Anders Behring Breivik, the man responsible for the murder of 77 people and for injuring 323 in the 2011 Norway attacks, blamed feminism for the emasculation of Norwegian men in his manifesto, whom he argued would be unable to defend the country against an “Islamic invasion”.

Hence, whilst it would be too simplistic to suggest that the Belfast riots were caused by the manosphere alone, the apparent involvement of an online movement rooted in both male and white supremacy in the Belfast riots indicates that a growing anti-feminist sentiment may be playing a significant role in directing young men in the West towards ethno-nationalism.

This week, the UK government has announced a ban on social media for under-16s, which is surely a step in the right direction. Social media is often the place where young boys are first exposed to harmful content by an algorithm that can push them from generic fitness and financial advice into violent, misogynistic and extreme right-wing echo chambers.

Nevertheless, there are concerns around the effectiveness of the ban. In Australia, where a similar policy was implemented by the government last year, 7 in 10 parents surveyed by its e-Commission admitted that their children still had access to social media. VPNs and weak ID verification enforcements remain a significant barrier to protecting young boys from dangerous content.

Most importantly, boys need to be given the support and the tools to be able to resist an algorithm that can capitalise on their vulnerabilities and insecurities. This is where education needs to play a critical role.

As part of their strategy to halve violence against women and girls (VAWG), the government is set on tackling misogyny in the classrooms by giving the teachers the adequate training to spot misogyny at school as well as funding behavioural courses for high-risk pupils.

Whilst this is undoubtedly a positive development, the government should be channelling its efforts into early prevention rather than intervention.

To successfully tackle the root causes of an escalating antipathy towards women and ethnic minorities online that is stirring acts of violence in our streets, our government needs to push back against unregulated algorithms, invest in mental health support for young boys and equip them with the tools to spot and challenge harmful ideologies.