Yorkton terrorism case highlights reach of extremist network

Terrorism charges announced earlier this week by the RCMP against a young adult from Yorkton have raised questions of how an extremist network is targeting people in Saskatchewan.

“I guess we’re always a bit surprised when something completely horrifying happens in our own community or in an adjacent community,” said Colleen Bell, an associate professor in the Department of Political Studies at the University of Saskatchewan who has studied terrorism.

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However, she said there shouldn’t be much surprise because of how the group operates, targeting youth and children online through popular games and platforms.

Who – or what – is 764?

Defining terrorism generally as a violent political organization usually seeking some sort of political or policy change, Bell noted that terrorism isn’t only acts of violence, but the effects against a wider, targeted audience.

The group 764, she said, is trying to “hasten the collapse of society.”

“They’re trying to cause and wreak havoc within people’s communities and homes and families, seeing that as a kind of gateway to wider social collapse, and so that’s what kind of crosses the line, is that sort of broader political agenda,” Bell explained.

About a year ago, the group 764 was designated a terrorist entity by the Canadian government.

Bell, however, said a good amount of information on the group dates back to 2021, with dozens of arrests made involving members and affiliates of the group. Those arrests have been on charges like sextortion and possession of child sexual abuse material.

Bell said the group is more of a network, loosely connected and transnational, with elements in Canada, Australia and the U.S.

“It’s fairly well-tracked in the United States by the FBI,” Bell noted.

She said groups communicate online to glorify violence through producing child sexual abuse material and then use this material to try and force victims to perform further violent acts against themselves, others and animals.

Categorized as a nihilistic, violent extremist organization of the accelerationist variety, Bell said the ideology underpinning the group is one that perceives the world as “inherently corrupt and seeks to hasten the collapse of society.”

“The way that its followers go about trying to do that is to desensitize viewers, targets and their own community to radicalise individuals into committing more violence that will obviously cause widespread social harm,” Bell explained.

The “loose network” framework of the group makes it hard to pinpoint how many members 764 has, she said, though she estimated it could be in the hundreds, based on the number of arrests recorded.

“It could be much higher,” she added. “I think the RCMP and the FBI and other law enforcement agencies are struggling to kind of get a hold of the reach of this organization.”

Using online platforms like Minecraft, Roblox, Discord, Reddit, Telegram and more, members of the group will reach out to teens and children who seem to be vulnerable, engaged in self-harm or experiencing mental health problems like suicidal ideation, often while playing games or commenting online.

She said that after entering these online spaces, 764 members will then try to sexualize or sexploit it by trying to get people on the platform to converse with them about acts and sex and violence that they otherwise might not.

“They kind of zone in on those children,” Bell noted, acknowledging some parallels between 764 and the incel movement.

“They also work through many, many platforms and social media apps, as well,” she noted. “They also target youth and teenagers, and so I think there’s some parallels there.”

“The idea is that those feelings of maybe social isolation, you know, self-loathing or insecurity, they’re essentially exploiting that to try to push their victims to actually harm themselves or to harm animals,” Bell explained.

Terrorism close to home

Bell acknowledged that many people in North America might think of terrorism in relation to extremist acts of violence, like 9/11, or violent acts happening politically beyond Canadian borders.

“That isn’t really consistent with the history of terrorism,” Bell said, “and in fact, terrorism can happen by people within your own community, and it’s not specific to a culture or a specific society, but rather has always been sort of everywhere.”

The terrorism charges laid against the person in Yorkton are likely indicative of a larger problem, Bell said, though it is unclear whether that is Saskatchewan-specific.

“It’s very decentralized, and so it’s not clear that there’s a specific pocket in Saskatchewan per se or in Yorkton, per se,” she said.

Bell identified the Institute for Strategic Dialogue as a good place to learn more about these sorts of extremist groups, and as a place for parents to identify if something could be going on with their children.

“I would just encourage people to not assume that because we haven’t necessarily had these huge, epic incidents like 9/11 doesn’t mean that we don’t have violent extremism around,” Bell said.