Working from home during lockdown led to a spike in people viewing twisted ‘incel’ content, an expert has revealed.
The ‘involuntary celibates’ are men – mostly white and heterosexual – who consider themselves unable to attract women sexually and form romantic relationships.
Members of such online forums often share misogynistic views – and a growing number of violent attacks have been attributed to individuals who identify as incels.
Dr Joe Whittaker, a lecturer in cyber threats at Swansea University, has told of a surge in activity from March 2020.
He said: ‘There is no doubt the extra time people spent working from home absolutely increased the amount of bad and problematic content people looked at, incels included.
‘Incel forum activity spiked and that absolutely could have created more opportunities for radicalisation.’
Dr Whittaker added of the pandemic: ‘It was a very uncertain world. We know in uncertain times people are drawn to black-and-white views.
‘So we can make the case that Covid might have been the perfect storm and the work-from-home access to this kind of stuff was an important part of that.’
Working from home during lockdown led to a spike in people viewing twisted ‘incel’ content
Dr Joe Whittaker, a lecturer in cyber threats at Swansea University, has told of a surge in ‘incel’ activity from March 2020
Controversial online influencers such as Andrew Tate (pictured) have been accused of promoting misogynistic views in the past
However, Dr Whittaker said that many of those involved in incel activity were not in education, employment or training, known as NEETs.
He explained that he would not have ‘huge concern about people doing 40-hour working weeks from home’ but rather those who are not active in the workforce.
Dr Whittaker said: ‘In terms of the spike in activity and engagement, whether it is a flash in the pan or that it will result in lasting influence it’s too early to tell.’
His research of more than 500 incels also found that those involved were typically in their mid-twenties, heterosexual and childless.
They were either living at home or renting and displayed extremely poor mental health – with high levels of depression and suicidal ideation. Around one-third scored above the cut-off for a medical referral in the autism spectrum questionnaire.
Metropolitan Police Deputy Assistant Commissioner Vicki Evans has told of a ‘rapidly increasing fascination’ in online searches for ‘violence and misogyny’ that she described as ‘a pick-‘n’-mix of horror, horrific content’.
Jake Davison, 22, shot and killed five people in a rampage in Plymouth in August 2021 before turning the gun on himself.
He had uploaded to YouTube videos with references to ‘inceldom’ and subscribed to incel-related content.
