FUNDACIÓN VÍCTIMAS DEL TERRORISMO 93 - ENGLISH

15 CITCO HAS COORDINATED ACTIVE SPANISH PARTICIPATION T he Intelligence Centre against Terrorism and Organised Crime of the Ministry of the coordinated the participation of the National Police, Civil Guard, Mossos d'Esquadra and Ertzaintza in a major Europol operation that recently iden- tified and reported thousands of links to terrorist and extremist propaganda on video game platforms and others associated with the gaming ecosys- tem. Agents from Denmark, Finland, Germany, Luxembourg, the Nether- lands, Portugal and the United King- dom participated in the operation. As reported by the Ministry of the Interior in a press release on Monday 24 November, this was "an unprece- dented operation", dubbed Referral Action Day, in which the countries participating in this operation locat- ed thousands of links to terrorist and extremist propaganda over a period of several weeks. Among them were some 5,400 links to jihadist content, 1,070 links to far-right terrorist con- tent and 105 links to racist or xeno- phobic material. Spanish law enforce- ment agencies contributed more than 75 per cent of all these links. Referral Action Day, held on 13 No- vember, enabled "this illegal content to be referred to platforms for review and removal within the framework of voluntary cooperation. The coop- eration of online service providers has been key to curbing the spread of illegal content such as incitement to hatred, violence and terrorism, con- tributing to a safer digital environ- ment," explained the Interior Minis- try statement. IMPORTANT EUROPOL OPERATION AGAINST TERRORIST PROPAGANDA ON VIDEO GAME PLATFORMS RADICALISATION OF MINORS At the same time, the ministry high- lighted that since 2024, European police investigators have "detected a sustained increase in minors and young people involved in terrorist activities and expressions of extrem- ist violence within the European Union." In this context, the ministry emphasises that "online video game platforms have become spaces where elements that facilitate the first steps towards radicalisation converge. Most of the content circulates in English, which amplifies the international reach of this phenomenon." First-person shooter games that in- corporate elements associated with terrorist groups or even recreate well-known attacks predominate. This "interaction," they note, "is be- ing used to recruit young people into various violent extremist and terror- ist groups." They add that "on several occasions, these platforms have been used to broadcast real attacks live." In this regard, they explain that "vid- eos, sometimes short, are shared on social media, containing fragments of recorded games that are incorpo- rated into elements typical of these narratives —expressions, symbols, emojis, or music— that facilitate their dissemination and bring the content closer to younger audiences. Their presence on far-reaching social networks not only facilitates the re- cruitment of new users, but also con- tributes to normalising violence and trivialising terrorism, causing a grad- ual desensitisation effect on audiences. In addition, during the editing process, they seek to evade the platforms' mod- eration mechanisms, which ensures the permanence of this content. Last June, CITCO's National Unit for the Removal of Illegal Content on the Internet (UNECI) published its first transparency report, which reflects the identification and notification of thousands of illegal links, collabora- tion with platforms, and the strategic priority of preventing radicalisation in digital environments. INTERVIEW WITH THE DIRECTOR OF CITCO NEWS