COVID-19 lockdown, some have turned to the internet in search for far-right extremist content.Moonshot CVE, a U.K.-based counter-extremism research firm, has noticed a significant surge in Canadians seeking out extremist content online.Moonshot tracked searches for “violent far-right keywords” in the six weeks leading up to the countrywide lockdown and compared them to the six weeks when Canadians were confined.
Searches in the Montreal and Laval areas rose 24 per cent. Out of the six Canadian cities surveyed, Montreal and Laval saw the largest hike in searches for violent far-right radio and podcasts.Meanwhile, Ottawa experienced the largest overall increase in search traffic, with a hike of 34.7 per cent.