To a discontinued part of the worldwide web where, up until yesterday, British people of all creeds and beliefs would come to engage in healthy debate about modern life,
metaphysical questioning and faddish diets. Now all that remains is an error message and a serious amount of psychological scarring for those who once frequented this
supposedly-secure enclosure.
“’The Belief Exchange’ was a lovely place to gather and talk with like-minded folk; excellent coding; lovely font; nice people.” A tearful Limey Moomintroll (right) opined, this
stay-at-home mother still in shock following the online atrocity. “At its height a few dozen of our avatars would congregate there - young mothers tired of Mumsnet mixed with
fresh-faced beta males who found the specialist message boards too hostile and wanted a supportive and nurturing circle instead, all of them trying to work through what they
thought of the world.”
“When Lu [Luis Snollygoster, that chat-room visitor who would go on to embrace extremism] logged in to introduce himself we
thought he was another confused young man who needed the support of our family to work through his issues.” Mrs Moomintroll
expounded. “Little did we suspect that a few months on from our discussion about belief and spirituality (and, in the case of my
brother-in-law, offering the lad a job at his cleaning firm), Lu would look elsewhere, become radicalised, and eventually take the ultimate step. It’s no exaggeration to say
this poor, deluded kid has damaged our lives forever.”
In fact, any experienced profiler would have immediately realised Snollygoster [26] was a radicalisation prospect, at risk from the shadowy ‘cyber-ayatollahs’ who soon
recruited him to their deadly cause. Along with living an aimless existence at home with his mother, Luis possessed no beliefs or interests to speak of, and would
spend much of his day on the internet, eventually embarking on meticulous preparations for the incident in question.
Police now believe that under the profile name ‘OneTrueWay67’, Snollygoster was lured onto ‘the path of the virtual jihadi’ over a number of months, with his favoured topics in The Belief Exchange changing from whether he should place a bet on Wolves winning at home, to strident rhetoric covering how Luis would miss everyone there ‘when it came to the afterlife’, and how lifestyle change was necessary to ‘embrace the teachings of Allah’.
“I just thought he was a wilfully perverse blowhard who ought to be reported to the site administrators and get blocked.” Limey Moomintroll clarified, sobbing. “Tragically, they
didn’t process my request in time, which allowed this tragedy to take place.”
Indeed, the authorities believe that a known fundamentalist group of artificially intelligent jihadis provided Snollygoster with the virtual explosives he needed with Luis downloading
them in encrypted form. This electronic package was then attached to his profile before Luis joined the community one last time. Once in the chat-room Snollygoster hung about
for a bit, rebuffing attempts to engage him in banter and trying to look unobtrusive until the users he most wanted to ‘take down’ joined the online arena. They included a
teenager who had mocked Snollygoster’s claim to have uncovered ‘the true meaning of the internet’ and a middle-aged man who publically disparaged Snollygoster’s burgeoning
extremist beliefs as ‘satanic’. When the time was right Luis detonated his ‘cyber-bomb’, precipitating a horrific moment of collapse and causing many chat-room inhabitants to
shut down their computers before turning them back on, sharing the misguided belief this might mend something that could never be fixed again, not really.
At the present time the police list the casualties at eighteen, all of whom will need to set up their profiles from scratch once the chat-room is restarted on another platform, if they
can remember any of their former details. These unfortunate victims include a handful of new mothers with too much time on their hands, several single men working the night
shift, one female A-Level student and three undercover officers pretending to be pubescent girls for entrapment purposes.
All are said to be suffering negative emotions ranging from mild annoyance to ‘incandescent with rage’ following this attempt to remove a key emotional crutch from their lives.
Although the hosting company are confident they can get a replacement chat-room operational within days on an alternate server, experts predict that many of these former
users have been permanently put off by the vicious attack, only feeling safe these days when utilising more traditional methods of communication such as the telephone, snail mail
or coffee mornings at the local mosque.
“I won’t be heading back there,” Lemony Moomintroll confirmed. “The way that whole cyber-construction disintegrated before my very eyes – I was terrified for my PC, for
all our PCs. No, I’m off someplace I won’t be put at risk by intolerant talk and casual violence – Snapchat maybe, or Ello if they let me in. Plus I can’t be bothered to think
up a new password.”
As of press-time Luis Snollygoster’s corporeal form had been placed under arrest and will be charged with multiple terrorism offences which are expected to land him
more than forty years in a physical prison.
The frontline of terror in Whitehall, across UK high streets and in the minds of every British citizen. And with our country more at risk
that at any time since everyone last got really scared, to the extent a deranged nutjob who beheads a random old woman because
he thought her cats stole his lighter is seen as the frontline of the war against ‘the Islam’, it's time once again to be warned by our betters that everything you
can think of offers potential succour and encouragement to shadowy men who want you dead.
“I would ask the public to bear in mind that all events currently occurring must only be allowed to happen if they help the government’s long-term terror plan, whereby we rapidly respond to the
many attacks coming very soon – oh yes, they’re coming.” Coalition spokesman Tecwen Startleshutt told a conference of cowering pressmen earlier, an eager glint in his eye. “If the terrorists
weren’t out to get us before, they certainly are now that the Prime Minister has thrown his weight behind the international response to ISIL, even as we ignore Boko
Harum altogether (they’ve still got those schoolgirls you know).”
“I digress,” Tecwen goes on. “The security services would like you to familiarise yourselves with the long list of things that could undermine our nation’s ability to
respond to terror. Currently they include the Human Rights Act, any kind of public spending, George Galloway, getting upset at airports if the staff dismantle your
shoes and throw away any recreational fluids, easing off on austerity, reducing air pollution, changes to the two party system, failing to allow us access to your
electronic communications, being surly to the police (who are only trying to do their job after all) and potholes.”
“Those are just the headline items.” Mr Startleshutt (left) went on. “Go to the Conservative Home website and you’ll see we’ve listed several thousand aspects of modern life that may
undermine our ability to respond in this way. Then await further announcements from us, your protectors.”
“In the meantime,” Tecwen finished. “If I can leave you with one thought today it would be this: the threat our country faces from Muslims is
huge. Scary, scary Muslims…”
This shocking communique follows a number of significant developments in extremist monitoring, including an important update to the national security software
(TerrorThreat6.0 – patch necessary, if problems persist contact manufacturer) as the UK threat level is upped again from beige (‘any minute now’) to fluorescent pink (‘you
are presently in the middle of a terrorist action! Take cover, take cover!’). When pressed as to the logic behind this ramping up of fears,
the Home Office claimed it was grounded in “detailed intelligence, facts that definitely exist”, pointing out the growing threat of
home-grown jihadis coming back from the Middle East “and blowing themselves up in Nandos, or something”.
“Besides, it’s good to keep people on their toes.” The spokesman went on. “Even if the mentally weak find their lives blighted by this generalised fear we’re spreading, at least
they’ll be on the alert. This isn’t about distracting a gullible electorate from how they’re being fucked on everything from train fares to utility bills in the build up to a general
election, no sir.”
But not everyone is convinced such attitudes should be adopted wholesale; this approach that means vetting every action to determine whether it helps or
hinders terrorists, as rhetoric expert Vlogger Mansplain (left) told Home Defence:
“You have to look at this very specifically.” Vlogger elucidated. “The phrase ‘undermines our ability to respond to terror attacks’ is, for the powers-that-be, a usefully alarmist way of getting backing
for anything against the public’s best interests. When the rich men who run this country want the debate around fairness or equality across the social spectrum to go away, they will do it by saying,
for example, that a failure to keep privatising, or a decent rise in the minimum wage, would somehow be playing into the hands of these ill-defined ‘terrorists’. It’s similar to when George Bush told
the American people they were unpatriotic if they didn’t like Iraqi kids being blown to shit.”
“I’d hoped the media would see through this by now.” Mansplain reflected, ruefully. “If you think about it hard enough, anything currently occurring could
prove to go in the extremists’ favour, particularly if the terrorists’ remain ill-defined in their evocation. For example, failing to cut benefits for the poor means
more money sloshing around the system which could find its way into the hands of an extremist cell outside Luton.”
“While raising the top rate of tax obviously undermines our ability to respond to terror attacks, because MI5 and the Police have to employ the most able managers from around
the world. Such leaders always demand an enormous wedge, otherwise they'll accept work elsewhere, leaving us at risk.”
“Look at it the other way too.” Mansplain elucidated. “Surely a fall in unemployment undermines our ability to respond to terror attacks.
No jobless means fewer men with time to sit around and play ‘spot the potential threat’ outside cafés or in the pub. And anyone who draws
a crowd to a public space potentially undermines our ability to counteract terror too, which includes everyone from the Chancellor of the
Exchequer to Kanye West.”
“So this is very far from clear cut.” Vlogger concludes. “Although I can categorically state you’ve more chance of being run over by some cows or getting struck by lightning
than you do of being harmed by a terrorist. That’s statistically proven.”
