Columbine Subculture as a Threat to Information Security

Vladimir Nikishin,Elena Galyashina,F.V Fetyukov

doi:10.1051/shsconf/202213400082

Vladimir Nikishin, Elena Galyashina + Show 1 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.1051/shsconf/202213400082

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Abstract

This study is based on the analysis of law enforcement practice, monitoring of social networks, analysis of media materials and theoretical works of Russian and foreign scholars on the topic of school shooting. The paper presents characteristics of the columbine subculture at the present stage of its development in the Russian-speaking segment of the Internet. The authors describe the main provisions that form the basis of the ideology of school shooting, substantiates that this ideology has an expressed political essence and has signs of a terrorist ideology. The authors analyse the relationship between the propaganda of school shooting and the propaganda of other destructive subcultures (right-wing and leftist-anarchism, incels, AUE (an extremist organization banned in the Russian Federation), etc.). They come to the conclusion that the columbine subculture in the Russian-speaking segment of the Internet, on the one hand, intersects, merges with other (sometimes diametrically opposed) destructive movements that promote hatred, enmity and (or) violence, and, on the other hand, opposes itself to other destructive ideologies.

Highlights

IntroductionOne of the current destructive threats to the information security of Internet users is the spread of the Columbine subculture (school shooting).Columbine is ‘a phenomenon which means that young people develop destructive behavioural installations, arrange bloody massacres in crowded places under the influence of modern mass culture (horror films, action films, computer games – “shooters”, etc.) and under the influence of “destructive groups” in social networks’ [1].Since 2014, at least 19 armed attacks in educational institutions have been recorded in Russia, the most resonant of which are incidents in Ivanteevka (09/05/2016), Perm (01/15/2018), Ulan-Ude (01/19/2018), Shadrinsk (03/21/2018), Sterlitamak (04/18/2018), Kerch (10/17/2018), Volsk (05/28/2019), Kazan (05/11/2021).In the fall of 2020, journalists stated that the Russian regions were overwhelmed by the Columbine movement, and 13 teenagers detained on the eve of September 1 lived in different regions of the Russian Federation, but were part of one closed Internet community
In this study, based on the analysis of law enforcement practice, monitoring of social networks, analysis of media materials and theoretical works of Russian and foreign scholars on the topic of school shooting, we presented the characteristics of the columbine subculture at the present stage of its development in the Russianspeaking segment of the Internet
Taking into account the substantiated thesis about the political and terrorist essence of the columbine ideology as a whole, we consider it necessary to carry out the legal qualification of school shooting propaganda as the propaganda of terrorism (Article 205.2 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation)

Summary

Introduction

One of the current destructive threats to the information security of Internet users is the spread of the Columbine subculture (school shooting).Columbine is ‘a phenomenon which means that young people develop destructive behavioural installations, arrange bloody massacres in crowded places under the influence of modern mass culture (horror films, action films, computer games – “shooters”, etc.) and under the influence of “destructive groups” in social networks’ [1].Since 2014, at least 19 armed attacks in educational institutions have been recorded in Russia, the most resonant of which are incidents in Ivanteevka (09/05/2016), Perm (01/15/2018), Ulan-Ude (01/19/2018), Shadrinsk (03/21/2018), Sterlitamak (04/18/2018), Kerch (10/17/2018), Volsk (05/28/2019), Kazan (05/11/2021).In the fall of 2020, journalists stated that the Russian regions were overwhelmed by the Columbine movement, and 13 teenagers detained on the eve of September 1 lived in different regions of the Russian Federation, but were part of one closed Internet community. One of the current destructive threats to the information security of Internet users is the spread of the Columbine subculture (school shooting). In August 2020, the Security 2.0 Center identified several thousand videos (on the TikTok social network), in which terrorist attacks in schools were justified to one degree or another. Videos tagged with #columbine have over 3.5 million views on TikTok. In 2019-2021, adolescents who consider themselves to be ‘Columbiners’ were discovered by law enforcement agencies in Adygea, Tatarstan, Khakassia, Crimea, on Sakhalin, in the Zabaikalsk, Krasnoyarsk and Khabarovsk regions, in the Nenets Autonomous territory, in the Kirov, Sverdlovsk, Volgograd, Tyumen, Saratov, Chelyabinsk, Moscow, Smolensk regions and other territories of Russia

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