A 16-year-old teenager who planned a terrorist attack in Sydney in 2024 used ChatGPT and TikTok to facilitate his radicalization and strategize his actions, a New South Wales supreme court ruling found. The teenager, identified by the pseudonym RK, pleaded guilty to acts in preparation for or planning a terrorist act. He was sentenced to a three-year community corrections order, avoiding jail time.
RK told the court he was first exposed to extremist material on TikTok, where he initially viewed historical content regarding the crusaders and their empires. According to Justice Stephen Campbell, the teenager's consumption progressed to videos regarding the September 11, 2001, attacks and the subsequent war on terror. This led to religious-themed videos and content of increasing violence, which RK discussed with people on the internet in an attempt to impress them.
During the offending period in 2024, when RK was 14 years old, he focused on the Sydney Opera House as a potential target. He used ChatGPT to research security arrangements at the Opera House, where the Sydney marathon finishes, and to ask if inmates in New South Wales had access to news. He also used the AI chatbot to obtain information about Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, the surviving Boston marathon bomber. RK attempted to contact Tsarnaev via email but never made contact.
“Initially, he was looking at historical content that may have had a political theme. He saw videos about the crusaders and ‘their empires’,” Justice Campbell said in the decision.
In addition to using ChatGPT, RK used Telegram to seek instructions on constructing a pressure cooker bomb and to send Islamic State videos to others to seek validation. He also researched gay nightclubs and other locations where he referred to people as "infidels." While RK claimed he was brainwashed by propaganda after watching bomb-making videos on YouTube, Justice Campbell noted that the teenager had no concrete plans for a terrorist act and had not obtained any actual bomb-making materials.
Justice Campbell stated he was satisfied that RK had genuinely renounced his adherence to Islamic violent extremism, noting that the process of deradicalization was well advanced following six sessions of religious and ethical training with a Muslim cleric. The court characterized the teenager's radicalization as incipient and hesitant during the short period of his offending.
In a separate parliamentary inquiry, Claire McGuinness, the Asio deputy director general for intelligence service delivery, noted that detecting online youth radicalization is increasingly challenging. McGuinness stated that the process often begins with a young person scrolling through platforms like Instagram or TikTok, where algorithms can shift a feed from conservative or fringe content to radical and security-relevant material.
