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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article

Front. Psychol.
Sec. Media Psychology
Volume 15 - 2024 | doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2024.1502098
This article is part of the Research Topic Extremism and Games View all 3 articles

Exploring the digital extremist ecosystem: A preliminary analysis of hateful posts on Mod DB

Provisionally accepted
Linda Schlegel Linda Schlegel *Lars Wiegold Lars Wiegold Constantin Winkler Constantin Winkler Julian Junk Julian Junk
  • Peace Research Institute Frankfurt (LG), Frankfurt am Main, Germany

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

    The last four years have seen a stark increase in research on extremist activities in digital gaming spaces, particularly on gaming-and gaming-adjacent platforms. However, one area that has not received much attention so far are mod forums. While a large number of mods with hateful content have been created over the last two decades, the forums used to disseminate and discuss such mods have not yet been examined by extremism researchers.Considering the popularity of modding and mod forums among gaming communities, this is a crucial gap in our current understanding of extremist activities in digital gaming spaces. In an effort to address this research gap, this article offers an exploratory analysis of hateful and extremist posts on the popular mod forum Mod DB, including right-wing extremist, jihadist, antisemitic and mixed-ideology content. We seek to provide a preliminary glimpse into this under-researched digital space, complementing existing research on extremist activities on other gaming (-adjacent) platforms. Our research thereby broadens the current state of knowledge regarding the various gaming-related platforms frequented by extremist actors and radicalized individuals and contributes new insights about a thus far under-explored digital space.

    Keywords: Gaming, modding, mod forum, extremism, Radicalization, identity-based hate, Mod DB

    Received: 26 Sep 2024; Accepted: 17 Oct 2024.

    Copyright: © 2024 Schlegel, Wiegold, Winkler and Junk. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

    * Correspondence: Linda Schlegel, Peace Research Institute Frankfurt (LG), Frankfurt am Main, Germany

    Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.