An increasing number of children and young teens are being given unmoderated access to the internet at very young ages, before their critical thought and reading comprehension has fully developed. Some of the most popular YouTube and TikTok content creators have repeatedly expressed far-right racist, antisemitic, and misogynistic ideology; some have deliberately groomed their young fans into it. Children and teens are exposed to extremist political idea before they’re able to fully understand their ramifications, and often end up down an algorithmically-generated rabbithole that leads from racist, antisemitic or antifeminist memes and jokes to genuine far-right and fascist ideology. Schools should teach critical thinking, tolerance, and ways to spot this kind of thinking, as well as the consequences of these ideas; teachers should be trained to look for warning signs of alt-right ideas in students, paying particular attention to white boys, to whom these ideas can be very attractive.
This content is created by the open source Your Priorities citizen engagement platform designed by the non profit Citizens Foundation