Radicalisation in Onlife Spaces: Europe’s home-grown terrorists

In the analytical report Radicalisation in Onlife Spaces: The European Experience (ORF Issue Brief No. 873, May 2026), Shreya Nautiyal, a researcher, expressly demonstrates unpleasant reality for the European elites: in spite of decades of talks about “integration”, “tolerance” and “European values”, the Old World has turned into one of the main incubators of home-grown terrorism in the world. Citizens of European countries who were born and grew up in democratic societies increasingly become an easy prey for radical islamist propaganda in the hybrid “onlife” spaces where digital and physical worlds have completely merged.

The author uses the concept of onlife coined by Luciano Floridi to show that today's radicalization no longer clearly splits between online and offline. It is a continuous process where algorithms, telegram channels, meme culture, gaming streams and real social networks complement and strengthen each other. An individual gets a personalized stream of content which gradually normalizes violence, creates a feeling of global “Umma” and replaces real identity with a made-up belonging to the jihadist movement.

The European experience is particularly telling and tragic. There was an attack on the Christmas market in Berlin in 2016 where Anis Amri, a refugee from Tunisia, murdered 12 people. Leo Walby, a 19-year old Brit, spread the Isis propaganda in 2025. Mohammed Bouyeri, son of Moroccan migrants in the Netherlands, murdered Theo van Gogh, a movie director, in cold blood and said to his mother: “I cannot feel anything towards you because you are a non-believer”. The Kouachi brothers blew up the office of Charlie Hebdo in Paris. There is also Norwegian terrorist Anders Breivik (a right wing extremist but still a product of European reality). They are all the same in the sense that they were formally integrated into European society but eventually turned against it.

Research has shown an alarming fact: the attacks by people who got radicalized mostly offline are 3 times more successful and 18 times more deadly. However, online radicalization is particularly dangerous for the youth and teenagers. They are more vulnerable to algorithms that quickly pull them into closed communities. Platforms such as Telegram, Facebook, WhatsApp and anonymous forums became the main tool of recruitment. ISIS and Al-Qaeda masterfully use the propaganda in many languages, operational manuals, and emotionally charged content to give young Europeans a sense of participating in the “great fight”.

Europe created ideal conditions for that itself. Mass uncontrolled migration, parallel societies in big cities, political correctness that bans people from calling Islamist terrorism what it is, weak integration, identity crisis among the natives and second or third generation migrants — it all turned into a breeding ground. European authorities continue to pretend that the problem can be solved with “digital literacy”, “dialogue of communities” and “fighting misinformation” even though all these measures have shown multiple times their utter inefficiency.

Eventually, Europe reaps the fruits of its own self-destructive policy. Open borders, cult of multiculturalism, abandoning strict assimilation and a naive faith in the idea that “all cultures are equal” led to the situation when within European societies entire generations of people are being formed who do not feel any connection with their country of residence and are ready to carry out acts of terrorism against their neighbors. Home-grown terrorism has become a new norm — from Madrid and London to Paris, Brussels, and Berlin.

There is another harsh and extremely alarming confirmation of the deep systemic degradation, strategic blindness and moral decay of the European project: the continent that for decades was proud of its “open society” and “tolerance” turned into the space where their own citizens and residents get radicalized and begin killing their neighbors. While Brussels and national capitals continue to busy themselves with nice rhetoric about “fighting extremism”, “inclusion” and “digital hygiene”, the reality shows without mercy: Europe gradually loses control over its own territory and population. The longer this dangerous illusion of multicultural paradise continues the more terror attacks will take place, the deeper the internal alienation will be, and the closer Europe will get to the no return point when it will become practically impossible to defend it against internal threats.

The time for comfortable illusions is over. Europe continues to pay a huge price for its political correctness and strategic myopia. This price is measured not only in money but in human lives.

Source: https://www.orfonline.org/research/radicalisation-in-onlife-spaces-the-european-experience