Reporting on M/NVE without amplifying it

M/NVE

May 15

There have now been enough M/NVE-linked prosecutions across enough jurisdictions that working journalists will encounter these cases regularly. The most consequential challenge in covering them is that the coverage itself contributes to how the phenomenon spreads. M/NVE communities deliberately seek notoriety; they recruit from the audiences that mainstream coverage reaches; and they treat press attention as a status escalator for individual defendants. Technically accurate coverage can still do harm.

This guide builds on existing journalism ethics, including the presumption of innocence, the anonymity of minors where applicable, and accurate sourcing. The recommendations below address what those ethics do not specifically cover for this phenomenon. The piece is also a companion to "What M/NVE is, and what it isn't," and assumes some familiarity with the working definition there.

On the basic frame

These are not lone-wolf cases, even when the defendant has acted alone. Revontulet's general position, set out at length in "There are no lone wolves", is that the lone-wolf framing is misleading across contemporary extremism more broadly, and is particularly misleading here. Each M/NVE-linked prosecution is the visible surface of a networked phenomenon. The defendant is part of an online community whose internal logic, coercive dynamics, and recruitment patterns are documented and recognisable across cases. Coverage that frames the case as an isolated incident misses what is actually happening and risks producing the wrong public response. Coverage that situates the case within the recognised pattern provides readers with the analytic frame they need.

Three concrete suggestions:

Place the defendant within the documented case record. Other cases in the same pattern (Eskişehir, Antioch, the Madison, Wisconsin school shooting, the Hamburg "White Tiger" case, the Dutch Base prosecutions, the Cameron Finnigan UK case, the Canadian December 2025 designation of 764 and Maniac Murder Cult) give readers context that helps them understand what they are looking at.
Avoid hagiographic or tragic-protagonist framings. The defendant is not a charismatic individual whose interiority is the story. Profile-style coverage focused on alleged genius, troubled-loner mythology, or detailed family backstory does the community's status work for it.
Name the phenomenon. Calling it "online radicalisation" or "extreme internet culture" is not precise enough. The phenomenon has a name that researchers and several governments now use, and using it correctly is part of getting the story right.

On imagery and aesthetics

The strongest single recommendation in this guide is: do not reproduce imagery drawn from M/NVE communities. This includes the obvious (skull masks, cutsigns, bloodwalls, group symbols, livestream stills) and the less obvious (saint-card formats, cutecore aesthetics, Drill Sergeant Grey and other community-original characters, ironic-distance memes used for recruitment). The aesthetic register of the communities is itself part of how they recruit. Mainstream coverage that reproduces it, even with editorial context that condemns it, gives the aesthetic reach.

Where imagery is needed, use court sketches, generic stock photography that does not draw on community aesthetics, custom illustrations commissioned for the piece, or the publication's own brand graphics. A blurred or pixelated version of community imagery is not a safer alternative. The community knows what is being blurred and reads it the same way they would the unblurred original.

A particularly important sub-point. We have seen reporters republish images of self-harm or imagery depicting victims who are, or may be, minors. At best, this is deeply unethical. In many jurisdictions and for many specific case types, it is also illegal, including under child sexual abuse material statutes that cover sexually charged or coerced imagery of anyone under 18, regardless of whether the reuse is journalistically motivated. Either way, the practice advances the communities' agenda by giving the imagery the cultural standing they originally produced it to acquire. Do not republish such imagery under any circumstances, even with editorial framing or blurring; obtain images of victims only through the appropriate consent pathway and only where doing so does not compromise victim safety.

On manifestos and livestream footage

M/NVE defendants often produce one or both of a manifesto and a livestream or recorded footage of the attack. Both are produced for distribution. The defendant intends them to be read, shared, and emulated. Coverage that quotes a manifesto at length, embeds a livestream, or links to mirrors accomplishes the distribution the defendant hoped for.

A practical protocol:

Do not embed or link to raw manifesto or livestream files. Where major platforms have already removed mirrors, do not surface alternative hosting in coverage.
Do not quote manifestos at length. Short verbatim quotes that establish ideology or motive may be necessary for journalistic purposes. Sustained passages are not.
Do not describe the manifesto as if it were a coherent philosophical text. M/NVE manifestos are pastiche, often poorly written, copying from earlier manifestos as primary sources. Describing them as serious intellectual production gives them more weight than they deserve and risks leading readers to seek them out.
Do not name livestream platforms in a way that reads as a recommendation. "The defendant attempted to livestream the attack on a streaming service" is enough; identifying the exact platform by name in a headline or lead is not necessary.

On naming individuals

Research on mass-attacker contagion (the No Notoriety project, Don't Name Them, and related work) suggests that naming attackers can contribute to copycat effects. Newsroom practice on this varies. What is specific to M/NVE is that the communities deliberately seek notoriety for individual defendants and treat coverage as recruitment material.

There is also a counter-pressure worth holding in mind. Refusing to name a defendant at all, or treating the name as something dangerous to even pronounce, can add a shroud of mystery and allure that ends up doing the same status work the community hopes for. These are not exceptional figures who deserve mystique. The right balance is to treat defendants as ordinary, named, and described accurately, without either repeating their name into a brand or refusing to write it at all. Demystification is itself a contribution to harm reduction.

A practical middle path: name defendants once when journalistically necessary, such as when reporting a conviction; avoid using the name repeatedly in headlines and social-media copy; and never describe defendants as charismatic, talented, or admirable. Where minors are involved, follow the jurisdictional rules on anonymity and resist the temptation to publish identifying details elsewhere in the piece.

Online handles used inside M/NVE communities carry status in a way that legal names do not. Where such a handle is operationally relevant, for instance, when named in an indictment, use it. Otherwise, prefer the defendant's legal name or truly anonymised (and not self-selected) pseudonym.

On group names and symbols

Naming the broader phenomenon is more useful than fixating on individual group names. M/NVE is not a small constellation of named groups. It is a complex ecosystem of hundreds, possibly thousands, of distinct online channels and communities that share enough features in their internal logic and operational behaviour to be analytically grouped, but that differ in branding, naming, and surface composition. A small number of those labels have become recognisable to general readers (764 in particular), and using those labels where they are operationally relevant is fine. But coverage that treats the story as "764 did X" will often miss the point. The defendant is more accurately a participant in the M/NVE ecosystem, of which 764 (or No Lives Matter, or Maniac Murder Cult, or any of dozens of others) is one named cluster among many.

Where individual networks are named in court records or official statements, calling 764, No Lives Matter, Maniac Murder Cult, the Order of Nine Angles, etc., by their actual names helps readers understand what they are reading about. The risk is not only in naming but also in reproducing materials. A piece that says "the defendant was a participant in the 764 network" is doing useful information work when that is accurate and doesn’t obfuscate the larger ecosystem the individual may have been a member of. A piece that reproduces 764 numerics in a stylised graphic, or that reproduces a “saint” image of an earlier attacker, has shifted from information to amplification.

On victims

Most M/NVE cases involve victims. Some are coerced minors whose images, voice recordings, and self-harm footage may still be in circulation within the controlling network. Some are still in active coercive relationships at the time the trial is being reported. Some are themselves implicated in offences against other victims as part of the coercive escalation, having been pushed or blackmailed into recruiting or harming others further down the chain.

The line between victim and perpetrator is often blurred in these cases, in ways that ordinary crime-reporting categories do not capture well. A defendant in the dock may also be, in operationally meaningful terms, a victim of the network that the prosecution is partially describing. Coverage that treats the courtroom binary as the whole picture will miss this and may produce coverage that is unfair to the defendant and to other victims still within the network. The same coverage may also miss further victims, those still controlled by the network, whose situations have not been litigated and may not be safe to make visible.

Protocols:

Do not name or identify victims, even where the court record permits it.
Do not describe in detail the content of the lorebook, cutsign imagery, or coerced material produced. The dynamic matters more than the specifics, and details can be looked up.
Be cautious about details that could let a victim's social network identify them (e.g., school, neighbourhood, distinctive features of the case).
Do not contact victims directly without first going through a specialist victim support organisation.
Treat the question of who is a victim in any given case as open rather than settled by the indictment. Where the defendant's own coercive history is itself part of the public record, reflect that without flattening it into a defence narrative.

On contact with communities

Do not contact or attempt to engage with M/NVE communities directly as part of reporting. This includes joining the relevant Discord servers, Telegram channels, imageboards, or other community spaces, even read-only, and even with a non-identifiable account.

There are several reasons. The first is operational safety: these communities actively identify, dox, and target journalists and researchers whom they detect, and the techniques they use to do so are routine inside the network.

The second is evidentiary: anything a journalist does within the community can be repurposed by the community as content or as an interaction to brag about, and screenshots of journalists entering channels are themselves status objects.

The third, and most important for general reporters without a specific harm-reduction remit, is that the chats and channels routinely circulate child sexual abuse material, coerced self-harm imagery, and other content whose possession is a criminal offence in most jurisdictions regardless of intent. Specialist research organisations work in these spaces under documented operating models purpose-built for the work, which differ from a working journalist's situation. Rely on specialist organisations or on court documents for the underlying material rather than entering these spaces directly.

On self-harm and suicide reporting

Many M/NVE cases involve self-harm or suicide under coercion. Existing media protocols on suicide reporting apply with particular force. Do not describe methods. Do not present the act as inevitable, romantic, or as a successful outcome. Always include crisis helpline information at the end of the piece.

The Nordic and international protocols are well-established and applicable as written: Vær Varsom-plakaten § 4.9 in Norway, Spelregler för press, radio och tv in Sweden, and the WHO and Mindframe guidelines internationally. They apply to M/NVE-linked cases as fully as they apply to ordinary suicide reporting, and arguably more so when the death was the outcome of an external coercive dynamic.

On verification

M/NVE communities deliberately mislead. They claim affiliations they do not have, post fake content, exaggerate the reach of specific groups, and produce hoax claims of responsibility for unrelated incidents. They will sometimes cooperate with journalists in ways designed to give the community legitimacy.

Verify before publishing that the defendant is actually linked to the network named, ideally using court documents, official statements, or primary-source research rather than imageboard or social media chatter. Verify that any claimed affiliation has been confirmed by police or by specialist research organisations. Verify that a manifesto attributed to a defendant is authentic and not a hoax circulating after the fact.

Specialist research organisations (Revontulet, ISD, GNET, GPAHE, Canadian Anti-Hate Network, Expo, the Combating Terrorism Center at West Point) are typically willing to verify claims for working journalists. Reach out before publication, not after.

Where to direct readers

At the end of any piece covering M/NVE, link to victim-support and crisis resources. For Norway, Alarmtelefonen for barn og unge (116 111) and Hjelpetelefonen (Mental Helse, 116 123) are the right contact points. For Sweden, Bris (116 111). For an overview and links to the relevant national equivalents and reporting channels in other jurisdictions, the Revontulet M/NVE resource hub at revontulet.co/mnve is a working starting point. If the piece is about online sexual exploitation specifically, INHOPE's national hotline network is the routing channel for content reports.