The Australian government has listed Terrorgram—a network of violent extremist chatroom-like channels on Telegram—as an official terrorist organisation. Australians found to be part of Terrorgram now face up to 25 years in prison. As an effort to counter violent extremist platforms, rather than just actors themselves, this is to be welcomed. But Australia needs to combine law enforcement measures with policies targeting our structural resilience.

Terrorgram has been linked to lone-actor attacks in Slovakia, Turkey, Brazil and the United States. Its listing places it among the likes of Hamas, Islamic State, and violent white supremacist groups such as Sonnenkrieg Division and The Base. But its network structure is fundamentally unlike these other organisations, and in this case the devil is in the details.

Terrorgram is not an organisation: it is a decentralised network hosted on one of the world’s largest and best-encrypted communication platforms. Telegram has more than 1 billion global users and a history of resistance to regulatory pressure. With a headquarters in Dubai, company registration in the British Virgin Islands, and servers reportedly still in Russia, we cannot expect the Australian government to unilaterally hold Telegram to account.

The government is rightly using available tools to limit the influence and reach of groups defined by violent ideologies. The ban is necessary and will empower law enforcement operations designed to disrupt Terrorgram channels, but challenges remain. Speaking to the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke highlighted that ‘you never stop chasing these characters down.’ Police will presumably infiltrate, monitor and disrupt the network, but it will be difficult to determine the identity of anonymous users. These operations may also have a dispersive effect: as policing increases, users will react and spread across more channels or to new platforms.

This platform optionality for extremists is why it’s vital to shut down immediate threats and deal with root causes simultaneously. In January, Home Affairs released an unfortunately lightweight counterterrorism and counter violent extremism strategy. But more recent government moves—such as the return of operational agencies to the Home Affairs portfolio—suggest the time is right for the concrete policy interventions so desperately needed.

Following the integration of the Australian Federal Police and the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation into the Home Affairs portfolio, the department itself is now better positioned to use operational expertise and experience to shape future policy. As stated in February by ASIO Director-General Mike Burgess, Australia can’t police its way to social cohesion. Our law enforcement is highly capable, especially at the coalface, but this issue is beyond any enforcement capability alone. We need to evolve our approach and implement policy that targets local and structural issues that push individuals towards radicalisation.

Australians, especially young Australians, are engaging with violent extremism. To counteract this, we need to understand why. We need comprehensive policy solutions that we can implement now to raise social cohesion and address existing grievances before they establish deep roots, rather than relying on security and law enforcement responses after ideological recruitment. We need to raise our social cohesion general health in addition to more targeted responses.

Understanding the grievances that transform into violence is complex. On Terrorgram and similar platforms, specific grievances are used to recruit and radicalise individuals, often intermixing with pre-existing violent extremist narratives such as neo-Nazi beliefs. During the Covid-19 pandemic, anxiety surrounding the vaccine and anger towards lockdown restrictions were commonly exploited. Another common grievance among these groups is a belief that politicians are untrustworthy or serve the interests of specific groups, a view that often intersects with antisemitic ideologies.

Grievances mix with free-flowing decentralised online discourse, resulting in a disturbing, illogical and near-incomprehensible blend of hate. Our analytical understanding tends to stop here, stymied by this incomprehensibility. At best, we propose improved mental health services. While these are important, we need to address underlying economic stressors and breakdowns within Australian communities.

By focusing predominantly on Terrorgram or offshore actors, we risk overlooking how our own governance shortcomings are feeding into the crisis. Decades of asset inflation and wage stagnation have left many young Australians economically disenfranchised and politically distrustful, as has underinvestment in community infrastructure and institutions.

Violent extremist actors are responsible for their actions, and Australia must continue to use appropriate law enforcement responses. Blocking Terrorgram is a commendable action to disrupt the immediate threat. The government can complement this approach and others like it with a social cohesion campaign aimed at preventing radicalisation by improving conditions for at-risk Australians and ultimately building greater resilience to violent extremist ideologies.

Radicalisation is not just an online issue, and we need policy that aims to resolve underlying grievances. It is that combination of advancing individual freedoms, defending our collective security and advocating social cohesion that forms the basis for long-term national resilience.