Followers of School Shooting Online Communities in Russia: Age, Gender, Anonymity and Regulations

Abstract

Today, for about five online communities promoting aggressive ideology are registered daily in the largest Russian social network Vkontakte. These youth communities advocate aggression and suicide. Community administrators are gradually forming a large group of young people for whom aggression is normal. Although there are a lot of studies on school shooting phenomenon, most of them are focused on media issues, the psychology of shooters, and a legal characteristics Current study was aimed to identify the real audience (followers) of school shooting online communities in the social network and their gender, age and social characteristics. Over the course of three months, we collected and analyzed data from 9 online communities. We found that school shooting community followers were mostly males aged 15 to 22. We suggested this age and gender group of young people the most vulnerable in front of the destructive information influence in social media. We also noted that the policy of banning school shooting communities for security reasons is effective as a barrier for spreading dangerous ideas among youth. Nevertheless, the rules and regulations including banning also make specific barriers for researchers, who investigate community content, behavior and characteristics of their followers.