Incels waging ‘war against women’ and pose ’emerging threat to children’, study finds
Warning: this article contains terms and references readers may find offensive.
The incel movement is waging a “war against women” and poses a growing threat to children, according to a report that calls on tech companies to intervene to stop the radicalisation of lonely men and boys online.
The incel – or “involuntarily celibate” – movement is an online subculture involving men who feel unable to have sex or find love and express hostility and extreme resentment towards women.
Research into the leading incel forum found a “community of angry, belligerent and unapologetic” men that poses a “clear and present danger” to women and an “emerging threat to children”.
Users posted about rape every 29 minutes and the forum’s rules were changed six months ago to accommodate paedophilia.
More than a fifth of posts featured misogynist, racist, antisemitic or anti-LGBTQ language, with 16% of posts featuring misogynist slurs, the study said.
On the forum Sky News found posts saying “women should be sex slaves” and “I feel hate when I see a girl”.
The study of more than one million posts over 18 months found that posts mentioning mass murders increased by 59%.
Perpetrators of mass shootings are known to have been active in incel communities or discuss their ideas, including the Plymouth gunman Jake Davison, who killed five people including a three-year-old girl.
Researchers warned that “unchecked, incel communities have the potential to radicalise further” and called on tech companies to act.
Jake Davison carried out the UK’s deadliest mass shooting since 2010
‘Not lone wolves’
Imran Ahmed, chief executive of the Centre for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH), a British non-profit group which carried out the study, said: “Incels are not lone wolves or socially isolated.
“They are in fact enmeshed in highly active communities with a coherent, evolving ideology that has radicalised further in the past 18 months.
“They are egging each other on to commit mass violence, normalising sexual violence against women and even codified their approval of sexualising children.”
‘Power-users’
The research was conducted by “scraping” forum posts and analysing members’ activity, trends and keywords.
The forum received an average of 2.6 million monthly visits, with 17,118 members. In the 18 months covered, only 4,057 wrote posts.
Almost half (43.8%) of traffic to the forum came from the US, with 7.5% from the UK.
Discourse is driven by 406 “power-users”, who produce 74.6% of all posts, some spending more than 10 hours a day on the forum.
The forum’s rules were changed in March from “do not sexualise minors” to “do not sexualise pre-pubescent minors”.
Incel content on YouTube
The study found that forum users most frequently shared content from YouTube, where incel channels have more than 136,000 subscribers and 24.2 million video views.
Davison subscribed to an incel content channel that YouTube has refused to take down despite public pressure, the CCDH researchers said.
Another channel posts videos of women covertly filmed in London.
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The CCDH urged YouTube to take down all incel channels and called on Google to push “incelosphere” websites down search results.
Mr Ahmed said: “We find in this study a reflexive dynamic between misogynistic communities online and incels.
“They argue with each other, support each other, share ideas, promote each other’s lexicon and values. In short, they are brothers-in-arms in a war against women.
“That’s why a small subculture, numbering in the thousands, has had such an enormous effect.”
Sky News has asked YouTube for comment.
‘Not all violent’
Dr Lewys Brace, a senior lecturer at Exeter University specialising in online extremist radicalisation, including incel culture, told Sky News that he agreed with the study’s recommendations.
“The thing that concerns me personally most about this incel movement, is that people don’t actually need to look for this stuff to get to it,” he said.
Although he said that some people in the community posed a real threat to others, he stressed most are not violent.
“Obviously not everyone in this community is violent,” he said. “In fact, my research has shown that actual violent conversations are the minority of conversations on these platforms.”
The problem for law enforcement is telling the difference between someone acting out on the internet and someone who poses a threat, he said.
He added: “For me, the ones that concern me are the ones that take these ideas, and they’ve written long posts where they’ve integrated these ideas with their own personal offline experiences.”
Given the example of Davison posting long YouTube videos featuring incel ideas, Dr Brace said: “That’s exactly it. Those are exactly the kind of examples we should be concerned about.”
Oleksandr Usyk has become the undisputed heavyweight champion of the world after defeating Tyson Fury in boxing’s biggest fight of the century.
The Ukrainian won on a split decision following the match in Saudi Arabia.
Usyk had 115-112 and 114-113 on two cards, while Fury took the other 114-113.
Oleksandr Usyk lands a punch on Tyson Fury. Pic: PA
Fury disputed his loss after the match, saying: “I believe I won that fight. I believe he won a few rounds but I won more of them.
“Make no mistake I won that fight and I’ll be back.”
In response Usyk said he was “ready for a rematch”.
Pic: Action Images via Reuters
Fury came under early pressure, with Usyk taking the centre of the ring with an aggressive offensive from the start.
At one point Fury was pushed against the ropes and started laughing as Usyk applied pressure.
The “Gypsy King” looked relaxed as he moved around the ring in the early rounds and picked his shots.
Pic: PA
Fury lunges at Usyk. Pic: PA
But after Usyk landed a right hook in the ninth round it looked as if Fury was in serious trouble. The Ukrainian followed up by unloading freely but somehow the bookmakers’ favourite stayed on his feet and was saved by the bell.
Last night, Fury weighed in at 262lbs (18st 10lbs) – nearly three stone heavier than Usyk, who clocked in at a career heaviest of 223lbs (15st 13lbs).
Fury refused to look at his opponent during a news conference on Thursday, but did not back down at the weigh-in last night, where the pair almost came to blows before being separated by their entourages.
Usyk arrived into the ring first, dressed as a Cossack warrior.
Fury entered to songs by Barry White and Bonnie Tyler, with the “Gypsy King” spending several minutes dancing on stage before the song changed to Holding Out For A Hero.
Anthony Joshua watched from the ringside, knowing he could meet the winner early next year.
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UK
Brixham: Warning ‘heads are going to roll’ after water parasite outbreak – as ‘nearly every house in one close has someone ill’
Thousands of homes have had their boiling water restrictions lifted after a water tank infected with cryptosporidium was drained and cleaned, South West Water has said.
About 16,000 households in the Brixham area of Devon were told to boil their drinking water following 46 confirmed cases of the disease.
On Saturday afternoon South West Water lifted the boiling restrictions for 14,500 homes after water quality monitoring results found no traces of cryptosporidium in the Alston supply area.
Cryptosporidiosis is caused by a tiny parasite and can lead to vomiting, stomach cramps and watery diarrhoea lasting about two weeks.
More cases are expected to be confirmed due to a delay in developing symptoms – and about 100 more people around Brixham were reporting signs of it on Friday.
South West Water believes the parasite probably entered supplies through a damaged pipe in a field containing animal faeces.
A contaminated water tank at Hillhead reservoir, where cryptosporidium was detected, was drained overnight and “thoroughly cleaned” on Saturday, South West Water said.
One local resident said she knew of only four houses out of 21 in Raddicombe Close, on the outskirts of Brixham, which have not had at least one person fall ill with cryptosporidiosis.
The local MP has warned “heads are going to roll” over the incident.
Tory MP Anthony Mangnall, whose constituency includes Brixham, told LBC: “This is such a serious matter that yes, I think heads are going to roll over this.”
He claimed the supplier had been too slow to issue its safety alert.
16,000 businesses and residents are affected by the boil water notice. Pic: South West Water
Mr Mangnall said: “From starting this week with a denial from South West Water that it was anything to do with them, delaying the fact that the boil water notice came in – meaning thousands of people used the water network – to then issuing it on Wednesday, and there are a lot of people who are very ill.”
He called it an “absolutely disastrous week” and said locals were furious.
South West Water has said it’s “deeply sorry” and that it’s been “working tirelessly” to identify the source of the problem and fix it.
Bottled water stations have been set up in the area.
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Liberal Democrat leader Sir Ed Davey accused the government of not doing enough to hold water companies to account.
He told Sky News the firms were “putting profit over the environment, over public health” after multiple cases of sewage being released into rivers and seas.
“We [Liberal Democrats] wouldn’t wait for fines for pollution,” Sir Ed said.
“There should be a sewage tax on the profits of these water companies so we can get the money now.
“There needs to be much tougher regulation… and we may need to look at restructuring the whole water industry.”
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Kelly Holmes joins anti-sewage protest
It comes as dozens of protests over sewage releases were planned for Saturday.
Surfers Against Sewage is promoting “paddle-out” demonstrations at 30 locations, with Olympian Dame Kelly Holmes among those at the event in Brighton.
The confirmed cases of a waterborne disease caused by a parasite have more than doubled.
There are now 46 confirmed cases of cryptosporidiosis, a diarrhoeal illness, the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) has said – with more than 100 further people reporting similar symptoms in the Brixham area.
Other reported cases of diarrhoea and vomiting in residents and visitors to the south Devon town are also under investigation. Hundreds of locals have also reported feeling unwell over the last two weeks on social media.
MPs and South West Water officials have confirmed the parasite most likely entered water supplies through animal faeces, but an investigation is still ongoing.
What is cryptosporidiosis disease?
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‘Cow faeces’ infected Devon water
The UKHSA first confirmed cases of the disease at around midday on Wednesday, while locals were initially told by South West Water that their tap water was uncontaminated and safe to drink.
But after testing supplies in the Hillhead reservoir, the water company found “small traces” of the parasite cryptosporidium – which causes cryptosporidiosis – and told residents in parts of Brixham and Alston to boil their drinking water on Wednesday.
A total of 16,000 households and businesses in Brixham, Boohay, Kingswear, Roseland and North West Paignton were impacted and offered £15 compensation at first.
Over the next two days, South West Water apologised to those affected and increased the offer to £115. Amid the chaos, one primary school closed its doors on Thursday due to not having safe running drinking water.
16,000 businesses and residents are affected by the boil water notice. Pic: South West Water
‘Very hard questions for water company’
Speaking to Sky News yesterday, South West Water’s chief customer officer Laura Flowerdew confirmed it was likely a broken air valve contaminated by animal faeces that had caused the outbreak.
However, she refused to give a timeframe on how long the incident would be ongoing – leaving thousands of residents facing an uncertain future.
Speaking on Friday at the University of Exeter, Health Secretary Victoria Atkins said there will be “very, very hard questions” for South West Water over the outbreak.
“At the moment I think we probably need to give them the space to conduct their investigation; we know that they have identified the source,” she said.
“The public will want to know how on earth that source happened, what was the chain of events that led to this, because of course we all understand the expectation that we all have when we turn our taps on is that [we get] clean drinking water and we want to be able to trust it.”
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Most cases of cryptosporidiosis pass in two weeks. Symptoms include diarrhoea and vomiting. File pic: Dr_Microbe/iStock
‘Expect to see more cases’
Totnes MP Anthony Mangnall also warned the boil notice could last “at least a further six or seven days” and called for more transparency.
Professor Paul Hunter, a specialist in medical microbiology at the University of East Anglia, told Sky News if the parasite was “a continuous thing” present in water supplies for a prolonged period, then “you’d expect to see more cases” for another two weeks.
It comes as hotel owners in the area told Sky News the outbreak has led to people cancelling their stay, while a head chef said “I can’t wash salad in the sink”.
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‘Destroyed our business’
Stephen Colemansfield, owner of Redlands Guest House in Brixham, told Sky News the outbreak has “destroyed our business at the moment”.
“Our guests have cancelled because of the mixed messages that are being sent out by South West Water.”
Rob, head chef at the Steam Packet Inn in Kingswear near Dartmouth, also said his brother-in-law is one of the 46 confirmed cases of cryptosporidiosis and has been sick for two weeks.
The UKHSA is working with Torbay Council, South West Water, NHS Devon and the Environment Agency on the incident.
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