Visions of Violence : Threatful Communication in Incel Communities

The incel subculture has gained increasing attention due to its toxic nature and its association with real-world violence. This paper investigates the prevalence and characteristics of violent threatful communication within incel forums, focusing on a platform known as Blackpill. We have trained a machine learning model to detect violent threatful language and analyzed the posts. The analysis concentrated on three key aspects: the identity of perpetrators (categorized into first-person, third-person, or generalized), the targets (individuals, groups, or general targets), and the types of violence described (general violence, sexual violence, self-harm, and military violence). The analysis showed that the most common type violent threatful communication involved generalized perpetrators targeting groups. Additionally, 13.5% of the violent threatful communication contained coded language, including references to video games to obscure violent intentions. A smaller proportion of the posts (4.1%) glorified past mass shooters and violent criminals.This research highlights the complexities of identifying violent rhetoric in online forums and the use of coded language to evade detection, emphasizing the need for refined models in threat detection.