Incels (involuntary celibates) base their identity on the inability to form romantic relationships. We conceptualize the ideology promoted by incels as misogynist extremism and explore the impact of the first COVID-19 lockdown on the radicalization of this online community. Based on computational measures, we conducted a multi-perspective exploration, comparing the prevalence of and participation in threads dealing with extremism, ideology and mental health on the incels.is forum between pre-lockdown, lockdown and post-lockdown periods. We found evidence of long-term and temporary radicalization. Moreover, we found that, specifically, older forum members increasingly post in extremist-themed threads triggered by the lockdowns. Crucially, we show that activity on mental health–themed threads temporarily decreased during the lockdown. These findings indicate that real-world social isolation reduces mental health complaints among incels but, at the same time, exacerbates misogynist extremism among active community members.

中文翻译：

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激进化或救济：COVID-19 封锁对 incels 的不同影响（按资历划分）

Incels（非自愿独身者）将他们的身份建立在无法建立浪漫关系的基础上。我们将 incels 所倡导的意识形态概念化为厌女极端主义，并探讨了第一次 COVID-19 封锁对这个在线社区激进化的影响。基于计算测量，我们进行了多视角探索，比较了锁定前、锁定和锁定后期间 incels.is 论坛上处理极端主义、意识形态和心理健康的帖子的普遍性和参与度。我们发现了长期和暂时激进化的证据。此外，我们发现，具体来说，年长的论坛成员越来越多地在由封锁引发的极端主义主题帖子中发帖。至关重要的是，我们表明，在封锁期间，以心理健康为主题的帖子上的活动暂时减少。这些发现表明，现实世界的社会孤立减少了 incel 的心理健康投诉，但同时也加剧了活跃社区成员中的厌女极端主义。