it looks like all underperforming young males can be radicalized online. Actually, any teenager can be “radicalized”. People who live in Britain, France, etc, are well aware of that. Parents check their kids’ computers in fear, because over there, it’s now obvious that any kid can be “radicalized”. The real word is: brainwashed.
It works for any radical ideology.
(Remember that it’s not radicalization of islam, but islamization of radicalism. In other words, anyone’s kids could fall prey to this. Not getting this fundamental issue is keeping us from effectively rooting the problem out.)
Thugs are different from kids. The mechanism of enrolling them is different. They are chosen for their willingness to commit violence.
Again: it’s not religion. Most people who were radicalized online were not “faithful” but either "feeble minded " (like the guy in Germany this summer, the guy in Nice), or common lowlifes. The Berlin truck guy was a thug, like the Paris attack guys. He was recognized as such and put in jail in Italy. After that he went to Germany, tried 7 times to get asylum, and was turned down 7 times. To me, it shows the vetting process works. Authorities knew he wasn’t who he claimed to be, and tried to send him back. Ironically, his deportation was accepted by Tunisian authorities on Wednesday.
Those thugs are told they’ll cleanse the world and purify themselves in violence while righting the wrongs against them as they perceive them due to their overinflated ego. They’re all ready to believe that BS wrapped in a shroud of religion but there’s zero evidence it is a long journey of spiritual self discovery.
If the topic interests you for real - and not just as an opportunity to echo online - try to see a film based on real life kids who were “radicalized”, Heaven Will Wait. As of now, what is the most accessible and truest to life.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rkAG5WilU18
Harder to watch and not about the Western world - makes it clear why thugs benefit in that system:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f7YeoB5bSBY