‘Big tech’ must do more to prevent radicalisation of young, Met chief says

“Big tech companies” need to do more to prevent the radicalisation of young people in response to antisemitism in the UK, the Metropolitan Police said.

Deputy Commissioner Matt Jukes criticised a “toxic online environment” and said young people – mainly boys – had become fixated with violence and searched for an ideology to justify it.

Mr Jukes was questioned by the London Assembly Police and Crime Committee on Wednesday following a series of attacks on the Jewish community in London, including the stabbing of two Jewish men in Golders Green last month and the arson attack on four Jewish Hatzolah ambulances in March.

“We have now got a very significant number of young people, not exclusively boys but mainly boys, who are exposed to the idea and notion of violence which becomes a fixation for them,” he said.

“They are searching for motivation and justification for it and are framing that with ideology, so people will, in one internet search, look at neo-Nazi material, and in another look at Islamist extremist material.

“What we do have sadly is a toxic online environment which is leading to the connection and radicalisation of young people to a range of ideologies or none.

“There is a fundamental question about how on Earth these young people can access this material online and connect online in the ways they can.

“We do need to see the responsibility of big tech companies fill some of that gap which has been created, and we need our regulators to do really well in that space as well.”

He added that wider society also needs to take responsibility for tackling antisemitism.

Alongside online spaces, the deputy commissioner pointed to education, healthcare and the charity sector to do more in response to antisemitism.

It comes as the Community Security Trust, a Jewish charity, said it received record numbers of reports of antisemitic acts last year, totalling 3,700 incidents, making the annual total second only to 2023, when there were almost 4,300.

Mr Jukes told the committee: “We cannot resolve the safety of the Jewish community by building ever higher fences and ever higher walls.

“There is a wider environment of antisemitism which exists, and a much wider whole of society response to antisemitism is required, that means online spaces, that means education, it means the health sector, it means the charitable sector.”

Mr Jukes said that since the attack on the Hatzolah ambulances on March 23, the Metropolitan Police and counter-terrorism officers have launched 11 investigations and made 35 arrests so far, with 11 individuals charged and one convicted.

The deputy commissioner said: “We have seen an unprecedented period of threat to the Jewish community in London.

“Whilst it remains for my colleagues in counter-terrorism policing to conclude their investigations, the question of whether there are state actors or their proxies behind these crimes remains a serious and substantial line of inquiry.

“I do want to acknowledge that for our Jewish communities, there is hostility from what is characterised as far-right or extreme right-wing sentiment, there is hostility from so-called Islamist sources, and there are hostile state intentions, particularly those of the Iranian regime.

“We have seen a combination of those three realities, and it is for that reason we are so determined and so clear that, although all communities deserve protection from hate crime, there is a specific moment in time now where the Jewish community is at the centre of that overlapping circle of hatred.”

When asked about pro-Palestine protests in London, Mr Jukes said: “In relation to protest activity, you have seen us change our position in relation to things which previously might not have been prosecuted as crimes are now being treated as such because of the cumulative effects on the community.”

He explained that people using language such as “globalise the intifada” are now at risk of being arrested.

He said: “We are seeing behaviours in their context, and that part of that context is a cumulative effect on communities.”

The Met has recorded 10,347 hate crime offences in the last six months, Mr Jukes told the committee.