PERIL
@perilresearch
Polarization & Extremism Research & Innovation Lab at American University, School of Public Affairs. We design, test, & scale up evidence-based tools to help communities prevent & respond to hate & violence.
Most crises follow a pattern: bad actors exploit fear to spread hate and division. PERIL's Mitigating Harms series tracks how manipulation and harmful narratives spread after each kind of crisis, and the evidence-based ways to counter them. Explore the series to date here: bit.ly/3TFdplM
Nearly two years after it became a national flashpoint, xenophobic rhetoric targeting Haitian immigrants in Ohio is still circulating online. PERIL's newest one-pager tracks how these narratives persist, and how to interrupt them. 🔗 bit.ly/4brohtr
Even a Supreme Court ruling on tariffs became a vector for antisemitic conspiracy theories and us vs. them rhetoric. Read more in this next installment of PERIL's Crisis Mitigation series 🔗https://bit.ly/4fgVtEZ
Weather conspiracies aren't just noise. They target disaster victims navigating recovery with disinformation and can fuel hostility toward the officials and communities helping them. PERIL's newest report breaks down the pattern of manipulation. 🔗 bit.ly/4vxkYbp
After the killings of Renée Good and Alex Pretti, harmful narratives targeting LGBTQ+ and Latino communities spread quickly. The latest in PERIL's crisis response series documents harmful narratives in the wake of the shootings and how to address them. 🔗 bit.ly/4wu9q9H
Across 104 documented 764 cases, the same coercion playbook appears again and again. The warning signs are learnable. Perpetrators typically pose as peers, often as another teenager. 🧵 1/4 Read more here: bit.ly/4uZHJUT
Where do 764 cases stand legally? Of the 104 documented incidents: 58 have charges pending, 25 ended in guilty pleas, and 5 in convictions at trial. Read that pending number alongside the incident curve. 🧵 1/2 Read more here: bit.ly/4uZHJUT
In our network map, the 764 node has 258 documented connections, more than twice any other node. But fixating on 764 itself misses the structure around it. The map documents 52 groups, including... 🧵 1/4 Read more here: bit.ly/4uZHJUT
Our network map tracks 23 platforms documented across 764-linked cases. Two dominate: Discord appears in 61 documented connections and Telegram in 40. But the more important pattern is the pipeline. 🧵 1/5 Read more here: bit.ly/4uZHJUT
In the days after the Iran war began, anti-Arab/anti-Muslim content rose 210% on Reddit and 180% on Gab. PERIL's latest crisis analysis brief tracks how bad actors exploit conflict to spread hate, and how to counter it. 🔗 bit.ly/4oSHw4L
Four overarching findings from tracking 104 incidents and mapping 406 nodes of the 764 ecosystem: 1. The threat is growing fast. From 6 documented incidents in 2021 to 51 in 2025. 2. It is an ecosystem, not a group. 52 interlinked groups, with a third of members in more than one.
A Dutch court recently sentenced a 22-year-old man from Spijkenisse to seven years in prison plus compulsory psychiatric treatment for the online sexual extortion of at least sixty girls aged 13 to 20. 🧵 1/4 Read more here: bit.ly/peril-764-re...
764 incidents in our dataset span 19 countries. The United States leads with 53, ... Brazil (7), Uruguay and Sweden (6 each), Canada (5), Romania and the United Kingdom (4 each), and the Netherlands (3), with cases as far afield as Australia, Argentina, and New Zealand. 🧵 1/3 bit.ly/peril-764-re...
The 764 network is global, but its center of gravity is the United States. Of the 104 documented 764-linked incidents in our dataset, 54 — more than half — occurred in the United States. Those 54 cases are spread across 25 states, half the country. 🧵 1/3 Read more here: bit.ly/peril-764-re...
What do 764-linked crimes actually consist of? Of the 104 incidents in our dataset: 75 involved child exploitation or sexual abuse material. Coerced self-harm is documented in 60 incidents, sextortion in 58, and coerced animal cruelty in 22. 🧵 1/3 Read more here: bit.ly/peril-764-re...
Who joins a network like 764? Data on 764 challenges the assumption that online child exploitation is driven by older adults. This chart plots age of involvement rather than age at arrest, because those milestones are often years apart. 🧵 1/6 Read more here: bit.ly/peril-764-re...
What does 764 actually look like? We mapped it: 406 nodes connected by 1,206 documented relationships, built entirely from court filings, government press releases, analyst reports, and credible journalism. 🧵 1/4 Read more here: bit.ly/peril-764-re...
We have now documented 104 incidents linked to the 764 network across 19 countries. The trajectory is alarming. Our dataset records six incidents in 2021, the year the network was founded. By 2024 that number had jumped to 21.🧵 1/4 Read more here: bit.ly/peril-764-re...
6 incidents in 2021, 51 in 2025. PERIL's new report documents 104 incidents linked to the 764 network across 19 countries and maps the ecosystem driving one of the fastest-growing threats to children online. 🔗 bit.ly/peril-764-re...
After the attempted bombing outside Mayor Mamdani's home, anti-Muslim rhetoric surged across fringe platforms. The new edition in PERIL's series on crisis events breaks down the manipulation tactics that spread after the attack and how they can be interrupted. 🔗 bit.ly/4owPL6n
A single AI-generated image garnered 2.2 million views and 58,000 likes after the White House Correspondents’ Dinner attack. New PERIL analysis tracks how “false flag” conspiracy narratives spread in the wake of a crisis. Read more 🔗 bit.ly/3SvYNUU
What happens inside extremist online communities after a mass violence event? New PERIL research following the San Diego attack tracks how harmful narratives escalate toward deeper radicalization in the hours and days that follow. Read more here: bit.ly/3RwYtFj
Later this month in Rio de Janeiro, PERIL’s Chief Vision Officer, Cynthia Miller-Idriss will be taking part in the MenCare Changemaker Summit – a global gathering of people working to engage men and boys in building more equal, caring societies. Find out more here: bit.ly/4nrFV5b
What’s often described as senseless or random reflects patterns that we need to understand if we’re going to prevent it." PERIL's Michael Jensen on why the new NVE Tracker matters as the first public platform of its kind. View it now here: bit.ly/4cT8NOS
A terrorism charge in Quebec, a foiled plot in the Netherlands by a 12-year-old, and a school attack in Argentina. These are last week's entries in PERIL's NVE Tracker, a live global dataset on nihilistic violent extremism. bit.ly/4cT8NOS
A full-day conference on what young men need to thrive: connection, mentorship, resilience, and an honest look at radicalization. PERIL's Pasha Dashtgard is on the manosphere panel, June 12. Free to register. bit.ly/4n8jJwC
The average accelerationist targeting a school is 16.9 years old. Nearly 7 years younger than the movement average. 75% of post-2023 perpetrators were minors. The youngest was 13. New PERIL/DVERT research. bit.ly/4w0t6lU
Last week PERIL, Bedrock & the Eisenhower Foundation gathered to discuss evidence-based policy for a multicultural and economically just democracy. If you missed it or want to stay connected to this work, sign up for PERIL's newsletter. bit.ly/3ONsmzY
13 trainings. 541 people equipped to recognize and respond to radicalization and polarization. And 2026 is just getting started. Interested in bringing PERIL's evidence-based training to your campus, organization, or agency? Reach out: periltrainings@american.edu