‘Nihilistic Violent Extremism’ Isn’t a Thing, and I’m Tired of Pretending It Is

Editor’s Note: “Nihilistic violent extremism” (NVE) is a term used to bring together an array of hateful actors who, working online, try to convince people to kill themselves, produce child sexual abuse material, and other hateful actions. Bennett Clifford, a senior threat intelligence analyst at Insikt Group, argues that the term confuses more than it helps—NVE is too vague a concept and encompasses too wide a range of behavior, leading to misunderstanding, poor analysis, and potential response mistakes.

Daniel Byman

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It is past time to retire the concept of “nihilistic violent extremism” (NVE). The term was introduced in a U.S. Department of Justice court filing in 2025 and has since been adopted by the international counterterrorism community. But from its inception, it has been analytically suspect, based on a faulty definition, a contradiction in terms, a category error, and several fallacies about the nature of the modern threat actor networks to which “NVE” was intended to pertain. Defining and categorizing violent extremist threat actors is an arduous task—particularly in an era of ideologically fluid threat actors—but the concept of NVE is not doing the counterterrorism community any favors in its efforts to analyze and address ongoing threats.

In the spring of 2025, U.S. federal law enforcement filed court documents that introduced “NVE” into the lexicon of violent extremism-related terminology. The definition presented by the FBI was:

individuals who engage in criminal conduct within the United States and abroad, in furtherance of political, social, or religious goals that derive primarily from a hatred of society at large and a desire to bring about its collapse by sowing indiscriminate chaos, destruction, and social instability.

NVEs are considered a subset of “domestic violent extremists” (DVEs), defined by the U.S. intelligence community as:

[individuals] based and operating primarily within the United States or its territories without direction or inspiration from a foreign terrorist group or other foreign power who seeks to further political or social goals, wholly or in part, through unlawful acts of force or violence dangerous to human life.

Since the introduction of the term “NVE,” federal authorities have used this definition to refer to a panoply of threat actors, including neo-Nazi accelerationists influenced by Satanist occultism, extortionists, hackers, swatting and doxing artists, child sexual abuse material (CSAM) producers and consumers, and mass shooters. These activities are varied but grouped together because they are conducted by participants in a variety of online threat actor networks that the FBI has classified as NVEs, including 764 (and similar movements), No Lives Matter, Maniacs Murder Cult, and the True Crime Community. The logic for attempting to find a definition that encompasses all of these groups, despite their diverse tactics, techniques, and procedures (TTPs), is that they all engage in incredibly harmful (and at times lethal) conduct, and share online ecosystems in which they frequently interact with one another. Most notably, members of these groups participate in “The Com” (short for “The Community”), a wide-ranging network of online communications platforms on which “members, many of whom are minors, engage in a variety of criminal violations … including swatting/hoax threats, extortion/sextortion of minors, production and distribution of child sexual abuse material, violent crime, and various types of cyber crimes.”

Thus begins the fallacy on which the “NVE” label is built. A classification of threat actors that assumes that fundamentally unlike actors with different modi operandi, TTPs, and ideological worldviews can be grouped into one category simply because they are present in the same online environment is a fallacy. Beyond overlaps in their online footprints and penchant for serious real-world harm, there is no solid analytic basis to the argument that all of these networks represent one single category of threat actor.

“NVE” is far from the only counterterrorism label that suffers from definitional problems. Authorities around the world have struggled for years to classify violent extremist threat actors who combine multiple (sometimes contradictory) ideological worldviews, frequently change their ideologies, or only vaguely express violent extremist ideologies. However, unlike the rest of the terms coined to try to describe these fuzzy categories—including the United States’ “salad bar extremism,” the United Kingdom’s “mixed, unclear, and unstable,” and academic formations such as “composite violent extremism”—NVE has one particularly glaring problem: “Nihilistic violent extremism” is an oxymoron.While no objective or official U.S. definition of “nihilism” exists, dictionary definitions widely concur that a central aspect of nihilism is the belief that there is no purpose to existence, meaning, or values. In contrast, the federal definition of the term “DVEs” explicitly states they are distinct from other physical threat actors in that they “seek to further political or social goals.” Even the federal definition of NVE claims that NVEs act “in furtherance of political, social, or religious goals.”

If NVEs were actually nihilists, from where would they derive the “political, social, or religious goals” they would need to qualify as “violent extremists”? Maintaining a worldview that assumes violent action can cause favorable political or social change almost certainly requires a belief in some system of values, a worldview that assumes, at some level, that meaningful social or political changes are possible, or at the very least that there is some purpose to existing. This is why most historical nihilists—despite their radical rejection of societal structures—have been extreme political quietists. Evidence shows the most commonly cited example of “nihilist terrorists,” the 19th century Russian revolutionaries who assassinated Tsar Alexander II in 1881, were instead insurrectionary anarchists to whom the term was misapplied by opponents of the contemporary Russian nihilist philosophical movement.

Because “nihilistic violent extremism” is a contradiction in terms, it has limited utility in accurately classifying modern threat actors. First, some groups defined as NVEs are not violent extremists. For instance, there is (at best) limited evidence suggesting that participants in 764—the group that has been most frequently categorized by the United States as NVEs—are acting “in furtherance of political, social, or religious goals” or due to their “hatred of society as a whole.” 764 and similar groups’ modi operandi are sextortion, CSAM production, and threatening noncompliant victims with swatting, doxing, or physical attacks. Most academic studies of the group and various public intelligence assessments assess that group participants are motivated primarily by their fascination with violence, sexual gratification, and their desire to build clout and credibility within the network. Even some of these reports that define 764 as an “NVE” or “DVE” group implicitly admit they fit neither definition. For instance, a report from the National Counterterrorism Innovation, Technology, and Education Center notes that 764 participants’ actions are “less about advancing a clear cause and more about gaining status and recognition within online communities.”

Other groups defined as NVEs are not nihilists because they have clearly defined sociopolitical goals. Some of the groups identified as NVEs have clearly adopted a neo-Nazi accelerationist worldview, using violent means to achieve societal or civilizational collapse not because they view existence as inherently worthless, but because they aim to create an anarchic environment that they believe will be conducive to violent white supremacy. For instance, one “NVE” group, No Lives Matter, publicly repudiated the sextortionist group 764 in 2024 on the grounds that the latter did not sufficiently follow their version of neo-Nazi accelerationist ideology and was too focused on Satanist occultism and pedophilia, which they viewed as inconsistent with No Lives Matter’s worldview. No Lives Matter, Maniacs Murder Cult, and other groups rarely, if ever, refer to themselves as “nihilists” or “nihilistic” and more frequently depict themselves as “misanthropic.”

Global counterterrorism practitioners, scholars, and analysts who have adopted the term NVE, are taking a well-intentioned stab at adapting classifications to an age in which traditional categorizations of violent extremist threat actors are breaking down due to ideological blending, convergences between threat actor groups, and the effects of digital environments. If the term “NVE” is finally retired, the counterterrorism community will hopefully continue to make innovative, meaningful improvements to addressing threats from ideologically fluid groups. While there are some potential substitute terms for “NVE”—analysts have used “misanthropic” or “nihilistic violent communities” to encompass groups under the NVE remit and “sadistic online exploitation” for their activities of choice—there are still serious issues with labeling all the divergent threat actor groups categorized as NVEs under one header. It may be worth going back to the drawing board, breaking down the groups classified as NVEs into their constituent parts, and finding their best-fit classifications one by one.

To start, analysts should isolate individual violent extremist groups within the NVE classification that are more closely related to other violent extremist movements, and reclassify them accordingly using preexisting terminology. No Lives Matter, Maniacs Murder Cult, and other threat actors that explicitly espouse white supremacist or neo-Nazi goals and principles in toto are racially and ethnically motivated violent extremists (RMVE), not NVEs. While these groups’ manifestos explicitly acknowledge their goals include societal or civilizational collapse, the endpoint of fomenting collapse is not societal destruction in and of itself; instead, they believe that a post-collapse society is conducive to white supremacist or neo-Nazi ideological goals. This worldview tracks far more closely with the neo-Nazi accelerationist movement, which has been a feature of the DVE threat landscape in the United States and other countries since the mid-2010s.

Experts and journalists should apply the same logic to individual threat actors’ motivations and ensure they are using specific and accurate language to classify violent extremist incidents. Recently, several media outlets, citing law enforcement authorities and counterterrorism analysts, tied the May 18, 2026, shooting at the Islamic Center of San Diego to NVE. For instance, CBS News described the perpetrators as “motivated by what the FBI calls ‘nihilistic violent extremism.’” But the 75-page manifesto purportedly written by the attackers references “nihilism” just once—as an aspect of modern society to fight against, not to emulate—and does not reference any of the groups labeled as NVEs, besides a single passing reference to “true crime” on the 73rd page of the document. Meanwhile, both authors of the manifesto refer to themselves explicitly as neo-Nazi accelerationists; frequently mention previous neo-Nazi accelerationist organizations, attackers, and ideologues as inspirations; name their “group” after a neo-Nazi accelerationist; and use distinct symbols and imagery associated with neo-Nazi accelerationists.

More importantly, the counterterrorism community must stop labeling 764 and other online extortionist groups as “violent extremists” of any type. Not every physical threat actor—even ones engaged in practices as horrific and damaging as 764 and its counterparts—is a violent extremist threat actor. Evidence from the past year of 764-related prosecutions clearly shows that the network’s goals and motivations, TTPs, and tradecraft are fundamentally dissimilar from those of violent extremists. Unlike other groups categorized as violent extremists, they lack an overarching sociopolitical cause or motivation, and focus on sextortion and CSAM production. Until studies produce significant evidence that participants in 764 are engaging in these actions with the primary motivation of causing large-scale political or societal change, they cannot and do not fit into any definition of violent extremism. Using violent extremist iconography or interacting with other violent extremists in online communities does not constitute sufficient evidence that actors within these groups are violent extremists.

764’s mislabeling as a DVE threat actor is not a mere definitional squabble. The clear policy impact is that 764 and similar networks are treated as a counterterrorism threat, lumped in with other DVE threat actors, and treated with counterterrorism interventions. Not only does this crowd out analysts’ ability to track other DVE threats, it also mistreats the very serious (but mostly unrelated to counterterrorism) threat posed by 764 and online sextortionists. Because the networks’ participants are almost certainly motivated by online clout and reputation, being flagged as a Tier 1 counterterrorism priority by the FBI has arguably given leaders in the community additional notoriety and provided prospective members with increased incentive to participate in the group. I’ve observed numerous instances of threat actors tied to 764 and similar groups bragging about their newfound status as a “terrorist threat” on the same level as the Islamic State or al-Qaeda.

Especially as the domestic terrorism threat landscape in the United States and around the world becomes increasingly convoluted, it is the responsibility of analysts and scholars not only to track existing and developing threats but also to create schematics and classifications that help practitioners to identify and interdict threat actors. After a year of use, it is plainly time to stop giving the term “NVE” the benefit of the doubt and return to finding meaningful ways of fulfilling our responsibilities.