UK sets up joint taskforce to tackle online networks of violent, misogynistic young men

com networks in the UK grew sixfold between 2022 and 2024, with hundreds of young men involved

A surge in online misogyny and violence among young men and boys has prompted UK authorities to launch a joint taskforce aimed at stopping those who seek to exploit vulnerable women and girls, or escalate to mass violence.

Britain’s top counter-terrorism official, Matt Jukes, told The Guardian that counter-terrorism officers will now work alongside the National Crime Agency (NCA) in an unprecedented move to address the growing threat of online radicalisation. The joint effort, he said, marks a “decisive moment” in how the country responds to young men becoming fixated with violent online content.

The new taskforce will monitor individuals consuming content related to killings, sexual abuse, and self-harm, and will target so-called “com networks," online communities of mostly young males coordinating to find and manipulate victims, especially those active on suicide or eating disorder forums, The Guardian reported.

“What we’ve seen over the years is the characteristics of those cases looking increasingly similar,” said Jukes, who also serves as the Metropolitan Police’s assistant commissioner for specialist operations. The concern is that it's becoming increasingly difficult to distinguish between a potential school shooter, a terrorist, or someone planning a violent attack against women—until it’s too late.

According to The Guardian, com networks in the UK grew sixfold between 2022 and 2024, with hundreds of young men involved. These groups, the NCA says, are often driven by the pursuit of “kudos” or online notoriety. James Babbage, the NCA’s director general of threats, told The Guardian that many of these perpetrators target women and girls who are already in vulnerable mental health spaces.

“They’re looking at suicidal ideation sites. They’re looking at eating disorders forums,” Babbage said. “In general, they are looking for victims who are already vulnerable.”

Jukes warned that the internet has "turbocharged" dangerous ideologies. Many young men, he said, are not only accessing extreme content, but also finding validation in online communities that reinforce their resentment and hate. “The idea that the interests of men and boys have been relegated, and the interests of women have been elevated, leads directly to violent misogyny,” he told The Guardian.

The urgency behind this crackdown has grown in the aftermath of several high-profile failures, including the case of the Southport attacker who murdered three girls at a dance class last July. The perpetrator had been referred to Prevent, the UK’s anti-extremism programme, three times but was rejected for showing no clear ideological extremism—despite exhibiting violent tendencies and an interest in school massacres.

Babbage told The Guardian: “The violence-fixated individuals that are coming up on the radar for terrorism policing, the tech-enabled violence against women and girls that police are seeing, and the com networks that we’re seeing engaged in child sexual abuse and cybercrime—it’s sort of the same threat.”

The taskforce is also urging big tech platforms to intervene. Jukes said tech companies should help stop extreme content from being algorithmically pushed to vulnerable young users, and assist law enforcement in detecting those searching for violent material. “The scale we’re talking about is beyond human intervention,” he warned. “There are too many users, too much traffic.”

Both Jukes and Babbage stressed that the threat is evolving rapidly and blurring traditional lines between online abuse, terrorism, and tech-driven misogyny. Their message is clear: the UK can no longer afford to treat these as separate problems.