Van woorden naar daden: Een verkenning en kritische beschouwing van het concept 'stochastisch terrorisme'

Note: This report is in Dutch. An English-language summary is available.

In recent years, people are increasingly at risk of being exposed to hostile discourse on social media and communication apps. Against this backdrop, the term 'stochastic terrorism' has gained traction in the media and popular scientific literature to refer to hostile, derogatory and/or dehumanising language by influential individuals towards a political, social, ethnic or religious group or individual, which — through interaction on social media and traditional media — may lead to a climate of hostility that in turn increases the likelihood of someone turning to violence, even if the initial message does not explicitly call for it.

The Research and Data Centre (WODC) of the Dutch government commissioned RAND Europe to conduct a study to explore this concept. The authors do so through a literature review, expert interviews, and three case studies. They conclude that it is difficult to conclusively show to what extent an influential person's rhetoric influences recipients and leads to action or even physical violence. There may also be a variety of other explanations for any given act of violence, such as the perpetrator's background and individual circumstances. The authors did not find evidence of a clear causal trail between the initial inflammatory remarks and the acts of violence.

However, it is clear that the enormous reach of social media and intensive interaction between users is a factor in magnifying and twisting an apparently implicit message into potentially explicit hate speech and calls for violence against groups or individuals. And while this phenomenon is not new, its risk has increased in recent years due to the ubiquity of social and mass media.