In April, two people were arrested in connection with a bomb plot at a concert in Brazil, where more than 2 million fans had gathered to watch Lady Gaga perform. Rio de Janeiro police stated the individuals were connected to a violent, and rising, online network known for targeting young people online, spreading LGBTQ hate and coercing young victims into performing horrific acts of harm and violence.
The FBI announced it has 250 open investigations linked to the violent extremist network called “764.”
In early May, the FBI announced it has 250 open investigations linked to the violent extremist network called “764” — in addition to local law enforcement investigations that are reportedly just as high. The cluster of groups exploits and abuses children and teenagers, often grooming them to commit ever more violent acts, including mass attacks similar to what was prevented at the April event. The investigations are taking place across all 55 FBI jurisdictions, alongside cases in a dozen countries worldwide. Warnings about the groups have been issued repeatedly by both the FBI and Canadian authorities, including through a new terrorism designation the U.S. Justice Department and the FBI began using — nihilistic violent extremism, or NVE — to describe the growing phenomenon.
But despite growing law enforcement concern and attention, there’s been virtually no investment in prevention. The rapid growth of these groups, whose victims are estimated to be in the thousands, has caught parents, teachers and mental health counselors off guard as kids as young as 9 have been groomed in the chat features of mainstream, youth-oriented social media and gaming platforms. This lack of awareness among adults and few prevention resources increase the risk that more youth will be harmed.
In conversations I have had with high school students during presentations to school groups across the country this spring, teens have reported feeling “numb” or “apathetic” about the steady stream of violent content that crosses their feeds, including through occasional errors in content moderation that have led kids to inadvertently see livestreamed murders, suicides or child abuse as they are casually scrolling social media.
And this is exactly the point; as a 2024 Canadian law enforcement warning about these groups explained, the goal is to “manipulate and control victims to produce more harmful and violent content as part of their ideological objectives and radicalization pathway.” By desensitizing kids to violence and harm, they can get children and teens to commit horrific acts more willingly.
The 764 label refers to a loose network of individuals and groups with various names and motivations but who all share a common set of tactics: coercion, manipulation and exploitation of teens and children. Some of the exploitation is rooted in financial extortion or nihilism, but in other cases, network members have been arrested in possession of Nazi material or have otherwise been engaged in networks and sites promoting violent extremism, mass shootings, Satanic rituals, or racially and ethnically motivated ideologies.
The core tactics of 764 groups rely on convincing minors to livestream, photograph or record intimate images, acts of self-harm, animal abuse or abuse of other children that are then used to force them to escalate their actions and harm others. Members of these exploitative groups reach out to kids online, grooming children and teens through in-game chats of multiplayer video games such as Roblox and Minecraft, but also through a variety of mainstream gaming and social media platforms. Girls with disabilities have been particularly vulnerable; one “how-to guide” online advises perpetrators to groom kids with mental illnesses because they are “the most susceptible to manipulation.”
In one example, a man involved in the 764 scheme reached out to a girl online and started a relationship with her, eventually convincing her that he was her boyfriend. He coerced her to send intimate photos, and then extorted her to commit acts of self -harm on camera. Again and again, victims later were found to themselves become abusers and recruiters for the groups.
Teens have reported feeling “numb” or “apathetic” about the steady stream of violent content that crosses their feeds.
The rapid growth of these networks calls for a different, more upstream kind of prevention that can better safeguard families and children. Every child should receive comprehensive digital and media literacy that includes a focus on online manipulation. Parents, teachers, mental health counselors and other caregivers need help recognizing warning signs, from kids who are increasingly withdrawn, exhibiting personality changes or even wear long sleeves in warm temperatures as a way to conceal self-harm, to unusual injuries among pets.
Parents also need help to stay informed about the online worlds their kids inhabit, especially problematic or vulnerable youth-oriented platforms or social media sites, and the wide range of evolving harms to which children and teens are exposed. And all communities need trained, informed mental health experts who can offer therapeutic support to the growing number of victims who have been harmed by these networks.
We can’t just expect families to build resilience to online harms. We also need to address the accountability of social media platforms that enable adults to exploit children and that have failed to address the impacts of increasing exposure to violent content on mainstream sites.
Law enforcement and media attention to the growing problem of child exploitation networks like 764 is welcome and needed. But our kids deserve much more than attention and accountability for harms once they occur. They need us to work harder to keep them safe to begin with.