On May 3, 2025, those attending Lady Gaga’s free concert at Copacabana Beach have no idea of ​​the plot, and if successful, it will turn the event into a tragedy filled with hatred. During the event, a group of admirers waved fans in simultaneously with the singers, Rio de Janeiro civil police foiled a planned attack involving Molotov cocktails and improvised bombs and targeted the LGBTQ of the American singer.

Two people have since been arrested, and the plot was organized by users of digital platforms such as Discord. Authorities say the goal is to radicalize and recruit young people to conduct planned attacks.

Those responsible want to make these young people take action and gain online infamousness.

Although authorities were able to prevent the attack, the incident was a clear warning about the growth of youth hate networks and how platforms can promote radicalization in adolescents, especially boys and young people.

As experts in technology and information science anthropology, we see something passed down from generation to generation about this phenomenon. The recent Netflix series "Pupils" by portraying a young person living in a hyper-connected online field without state oversight and parental oversight. In these areas, bullying toxic masculinity permeates violence, often targeting women and sexual minorities.

The show is held in the UK but provides a mirror to the world. Data from voting company Gallup shows that ideology between young men and women in Gen Z is growing. This disagreement is often expressed through actions related to “manosphere” such as misogyny and Incel behavior, in which young people and boys oppose progressive values.

Hate Platform

According to Gallup's survey, women aged 18 to 30 are more freer than men in the United States. In Germany, the right-wing coalition recently won national elections, while the extreme right-wing AFD party's popularity has risen at an astonishing rate, with a gap of 30 points. In Poland, although the far-right left power at the end of 2023 eight years later, nearly half of men aged 18 to 21 support far-right parties, while only one in six women of the same age group.

Just as online platforms like Discord, Tiktok and Reddit have become the space for identity formation, this polarization is also emerging.

However, many of these platforms do not promote diversity but serve as machines for generating and spreading hatred. 2021 research maps Discord's Darkside published in the journal New Media & Society, showing that despite marketing efforts to distance it from the far right, Discord hosts thousands of servers related to neo-Nazi, misogynistic, racism, fear and conspiracy theories. The researchers identified 2,741 such servers - with more than 850,000 active members.

These networks end up acting as recruiting hubs, where – young people – especially boys – are lured by Edgy Memes, based on the promise of playing the game of belonging and identity that excludes others. The Discord structure that prioritizes privacy and decentralization has become the emergence of what scholar Adrienne Massanari calls "toxic technology cultivation."

Such as Disboard - services such as informal search engines such as Discord servers - are used to recruit teenagers into glory Nazism, encourage hatred of the LGBTQ+ community and people's hatred, and even provide "service" for coordinated attacks on other servers. That seems to be the case in the frustrating attack on the Lady Gaga concert.

Propose a challenge

An important factor in the success of these radical environments is gamification – using such uses as challenges, rewards and rankings on non-challenges, rewards and rankings. When applied to social networks and extremist forums, gamification turns participation into competition and hate speech into playful challenges.

This approach makes the entry into extremism more palatable for young people, impressed people, and conceals the violence behind seemingly harmless mechanisms. As noted in the 2021 report gamification and online hate speech, gamification has become a powerful tool for normalizing and spreading hatred, especially among young people seeking recognition and belonging.

This process occurs when users create rules, symbolic rewards, and challenges, called "bottom-up gamification". For example, by turning hate speech into a “challenge” involving people who humiliate women or online LGBTQ+ communities, the dehumanization of the goal is presented in a playful, viral way.

Turn hatred into entertainment

An investigation into the fouling attack of Lady Gaga's Copacabana concert reveals the mechanism completely: The attack was seen as a "collective challenge" with young people recruiting to build Molotov cocktails and explosive backpacks to be notorious on social media.

The logic of gamification also creates structures of “achievement” and “ratings”, thereby promoting competition and enhancing radical ideology. As shown in the 2022 study by criminologists Suraj Lakhani and Susann Wiedlitzka, attacks such as the 2019 Mosque Attack in Christchurch, New Zealand, in which 51 people were killed, planned and executed with powerful inspiration, strong inspiration from the game, including live broadcasts similar to "People Who Makes Play", which included "People Who Makes Play", a typical view, where the view is typical and the view is played. That treats death tolls as "score."

This aestheticization of violence is a bonding element for young people in the digital space, especially those who already feel marginalized or frustrated, and found in the sense of belonging and affirmation found in these hate games. In this way, gamification turns hatred into entertainment, strengthens connections in toxic communities and makes it harder to see this behavior as extremism.

Close the hatred of a generation

We believe that society faces a dual challenge: moderate demand for platforms and support measures to prevent men and boys from being attracted to the toxic digital space.

The gender gap within Generation Z is not very small either. Broadly speaking, it reflects the rift between a generation of young women who are under the power of #MeToo and the ability of other feminist movements, who embrace the reasons for progress, and a generation of men who are threatened by perceived power in this new environment, which is threatened by the far right turn and disgusting in the digital space.

This gap has a real impact on personal relationships, schools and democracy as a whole. But it also reveals what we think must be clearly stated: Platform regulations are not only technical issues. The future of a generation cannot be based on algorithms that reward hatred and radicalize.

This article is a translated and adapted story originally published by Brazil on May 8, 2025.