A joint action in which Spain has participated and which has received the support of the European Police Office (Europol) has eliminated more than 6,500 links that spread racist and xenophobic propaganda on platforms online video games and related applications.
On November 13, Spain, Denmark, Finland, Germany, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Portugal and the United Kingdom, through the Internet Complaints Unit of the European Union, participated in the reporting of thousands of URLs leading to dangerous and illicit material online.
In order to address terrorist, racist and xenophobic content online, especially on video game platforms and related services and applications, they were reported and removed 5,408 links to jihadist content, 1,070 links to violent far-right content and terrorist y 105 links to racist and xenophobic contentas reported by Europol in a statement.
The content varies according to the intention of those who spread it. According to Europol, they used platforms to spread recreations of terrorist attacks, school shootings or executions in the video games themselves, which they edit with chants, music or suggestive emojis. In others, they used them to recruit minors or even for live broadcast real attacks and suicides.
To achieve their goals, they use applications and services such as those that allow live broadcast o communication through chats during online games, as well as those that facilitate sharing advice, news and discussions about video games.
As Europol points out, not all contents are easily identifiable as violent, although there are others that are linked to usernames and profile photos with references to notorious terrorists.