I once assumed the worst excesses of the internet would remain confined to the fringes, visible only to those who went looking. A glance at the cases piling up in British courts suggests otherwise. The 764 network, which surfaced in 2021 from an earlier outfit known as CVLT, has been systematically targeting children as young as nine, often those already struggling with mental health or living on the margins. Its methods are as calculated as they are grotesque.
Members lure victims on platforms popular with the young, Discord, Telegram, Roblox and Minecraft among them. Once explicit material is obtained, it becomes leverage. The coercion escalates: self-harm, violence against others, animal abuse, further production of abuse material. Status within the group is earned by recording and sharing the degradation. It is gamified cruelty, stripped of any pretence at humanity.
The British cases now reaching court
Two recent sentencings bring the reality home. In January 2025 Cameron Finnigan, a 19-year-old from Horsham who used the handle Acid online, admitted encouraging suicide, possessing a terrorism manual and holding indecent images of a child. He received six years in prison plus a three-year extended licence. Then, last month, Elijah Palmer appeared at Sheffield Crown Court. The then 18-year-old was given four years and nine months, with another four years on extended licence, after pleading guilty to a raft of offences including encouraging serious self-harm under the Online Safety Act.
Palmer blackmailed and threatened his victim, demanding increasingly degrading acts to serve himself and build his reputation amongst other members of the 764 group.
Those are the measured words of Caroline Deacon, senior crown prosecutor for CPS Yorkshire and Humberside. She added that the new legislation had proved necessary precisely because of cases like this, and that prosecutors would not hesitate to use it. Palmer had first contacted his victim on Roblox, moved the conversation to Discord where the 764 network operates, and even deployed a fake bomb threat as part of the blackmail. The pattern is depressingly familiar.
At least four British teenagers have now been arrested in connection with the network. Law enforcement agencies across the UK, United States, Canada, Australia and elsewhere have issued formal warnings. The FBI alone is running hundreds of investigations tied to 764 in America. Researchers have tallied at least 295 arrests linked to the wider Com ecosystem across 33 countries. Canada and New Zealand have gone so far as to designate the network a terrorist group.
Platform accountability and institutional inertia
What strikes me, with the weary recognition of someone who has watched regulatory promises come and go, is how slowly the response has matched the threat. These groups recruit where children already gather. They exploit the very design of social platforms that prioritise engagement over safety. The result is a steady supply of vulnerable targets and a marketplace for the most depraved content.
