Joshua Fisher-Birch, a researcher at the Counter Extremism Project, said extremist propagandists operate similarly to content creators in many ways: they try to score as many followers as possible and keep them engaged. “This is all part of the attention economy,” he said. Extremist groups aim to spread their propaganda on large social media sites with lots of eyes on them, like TikTok and Instagram, Fisher-Birch said, or on gaming platforms that are popular with younger people. Telegram and other messaging apps are sometimes used for private chats and one-on-one communication, he said.