Lee Williams and the problem of Stochastic Terrorism
What can be done about someone who doesn't directly call for violence, but spreads the kind of misinformation we know leads to violence?
“Police are aware of the video, however for privacy reasons we are not in a position to comment on any specific individuals or groups.”
That was the opening sentence from a police media spokesperson when I requested comment about misinformation being spread by a New Zealand based YouTuber, Lee Williams, in the wake of far-right violence in the UK. Further to that, I’d asked about a comment on one of the videos from a licensed firearms owner who once threatened to destroy “mosque after mosque until they take me out”. Williams responded asking him to get in touch via WhatsApp. “Police are concerned about narratives and activity which can be influenced by misinformation,” the statement continued, “and while we do scan the internet for intelligence gathering purposes, Police cannot monitor everything online.”
Williams’ videos, awash with statements like “I'm afraid the UK is now plunging headlong into civil war. The people have been ignored far too long. There's only one option left for them, or see their once green and pleasant land being completely transformed into you know full well what.” (emphasis mine) are examples of what is known as stochastic terrorism. He is not directly calling for violence, but engaging in a kind of demagogy that makes violence statistically more likely. Molly Amman, an attorney and retired FBI behavioural analyst, and Reid Meloy, a forensic psychologist and co-editor of the International Handbook of Threat Assessment explain the concept:
“As a practical matter stochastic terrorism is an interactive process between a public speaker who may be a charismatic leader, one or more amplifying forces such as a media platform, and one or more ultimate receivers. The originator speaks out publicly and with hostility toward a selected outgroup or individual in order to advance a political or social goal. An unknown receiver takes it in and churns out anger, contempt or disgust, often mirroring the speaker’s hostility and combining it with his own fear and anxiety stoked by the speech; such negative emotions may be intentionally aroused by the speaker to prove the need for his leadership and generate feelings of imminent threat posed by the target of his rhetoric that will personally impact the persecuted receiver. The speaker may overtly declare the target to be a threat, or “joke” about violent solutions to the shared problem represented by the target; violence is never explicitly suggested and plausible deniability remains intact. Social and news mass media outlets wittingly or unwittingly spread and amplify the message and its themes. Through repetition and saturation the target may be further degraded and dehumanized via attacks on the target’s personal attributes.”
It’s not just an academic question. When Māori activists launched a petition to Williams’ then employer in 2021 requesting they end their contract with him following a video he made imitating Te Parti Māori co-leader Rawiwi Waititi, Richard Jacobs (a frequent commenter on Williams’ YouTube channel under the name Richard Silver) uploaded a video where he brandished a gun and called for genocide against Māori, claiming that the Māori population "could be wiped out within a month". Jacobs became one of the rare cases of someone being charged with inciting racial disharmony, which has been illegal since 1993. His video was also classified as an objectionable publication.
Williams’ content falls into the category of ‘awful but lawful’, it is not illegal, though it likely violates YouTube policy on misinformation that could lead to egregious harm. YouTube has not responded to requests for comment, but one video, titled “Britain. It's just a matter of when, not if, it explodes into civil war” was removed as of August 14, for violation of YouTube’s hate speech policy. I asked Aliya Danzeisen, head of the Islamic Women’s Council of New Zealand (IWCNZ) if she felt that enough was being done by social media platforms to stem the flow of misinformation.
“The social media platforms absolutely have not stopped the spread of misinformation, and for many of them it looks like they are making absolutely no effort to monitor. On Twitter, it appears minimal to no level of moderation occurs. If they don't have standards, it makes it impossible to breach them.”
Similar comments were made by Imran Ahmed, founder of the UK Centre for Countering Digital Hate, appearing on RNZ on August 10th.
“What we also have of course, is not just, you know, bad platforms, bad enforcement, these algorithms that advantage disinformation, but in the case of X, the platform formerly known as Twitter, we have a particularly acute example of how a proprietor, the owner of that platform, Elon Musk, one of the world's richest human beings, himself directly spreading disinformation.
Just in the last few days. He's been at war with the prime minister of Britain saying "Civil War is coming." He's been spreading lies about Muslims and about who perpetrated the attack. He himself has been an active protagonist in the spreading of these lies, and so we have this Triple Threat from X; the algorithms, the poor enforcement and the idiot that's in charge of it as well.”
In what appears a case of terrible timing, the government announced at the start of the month that they won’t be progressing the last eight recommendations of the Royal Commission into the Christchurch shooting. “First of all, it is more than 8 recommendations that will not be progressed.” Danzeisen tells me, “Given 17 recommendations rely on the central premise, that a National Intelligence and Security Agency will be established, and this government refused to have it established, also, many are unfinished.” It was a sentiment echoed by the Federation of Islamic Associations of New Zealand (FIANZ).
“It is simply not a case of the Lead Coordination Minister Hon Judith Collins cancelling some of the recommendations, but the practical reality is that she is dismantling much of the excellent work done by national security agencies like the NZSIS, NZ Police and the DPMC. She is undoing three years of consultation and international best practice in the prevention of violent extremism and terrorism which NZ had developed, and in the process made NZ more prone to acts of terrorism like that suffered on March 15. Last time it was the Muslim community, in the future it could be other ethnic/faith communities or vulnerable groups.”
In an August 11 video, that remains online at the time of writing with over 1,700 views Lee Williams claims that:
“in Croydon…you get 100s of people of a certain religious persuasion, rolling down the streets terrorising everybody, looking for white men to- mostly white men- to beat the crap out of with weapons, and the police know it to be the same in Birmingham last week and it makes you wonder doesn't it? Makes you wonder, Starmer, as he making these decisions, obviously he's making these decisions, but has he being told what to do as he been-- installed by, dare I say it, the WEF”
It’s more misinformation. The WEF here refers to the World Economic Forum, a popular target for conspiracy theories. Williams goes on to state that the demonstrators in the UK
“are trying to raise an issue where- an issue that concerns everybody in Britain: the mass- beyond mass- influx, if you want, invasion, and it is an invasion! the population of Birmingham winning every two years, one and a half million coming in every two years of mostly fighting age young men.”
He doesn't call for violence, but tells his audience that they are at risk of violence from immigrants and asylum seekers. The later half of the video sees Williams relaying misinformation from an unidentified contact who told him there are weapons being stored under British mosques. It’s possible that YouTube will remove this video at some point too, but Williams will make more. The over 400 videos on his channel have just clocked up over a million views between them.
The emailed statement from police ends “While spreading misinformation in itself is not necessarily a criminal offence, Police can become involved when there is evidence of potential criminal offending and will do all we can to investigate and take appropriate action.” But with stochastic terrorism the link between mis- and disinformation and criminal offending is never so direct we can apportion blame.
In the past I’ve made a comparison to climate change. We know that climate change makes extreme weather events more likely to occur, yet we can’t point to a storm and say with certainty that it happened because of climate change. We can only say that we need to reduce harmful emissions, to reduce the frequency of extreme weather events. To reduce far-right violence, seen on the streets of British cities this month but before that in other cities- Charlottesville, Virginia and Christchurch to name two- we need to reduce the harmful emissions of disinformation and hate coming from influencers like Lee Williams. Over five years since the massacre in Christchurch, we still don’t seem to be able to do that in a meaningful way.