Young gay and bisexual men are living in fear amid rising hate crimes against them, including "bait and bash attacks" set up via dating apps, an inquiry has been told.
Social media platforms and algorithms were increasingly used to co-ordinate homophobic attacks, with the organised violence forcing some men back into the closet.
A Victorian parliamentary inquiry into anti-LGBTQI hate crimes, chaired by Liberal MP Joe McCracken, was told of the issues in Melbourne on Thursday.
Victorian Commissioner for LGBTQI Communities Joe Ball said there had been a rise in such hate crimes, but much of it was under-reported.
Amid a rise in anti-LGBTQI sentiment globally, there had been significant numbers of co-ordinated, sustained hate crimes against LGBTQI people in Victoria, he told the inquiry.
It was conceivable a terrorist attack could target the LGBTQI community in Australia, Mr Ball said.
"Gay and bi men are living in fear along with LGBTQI plus communities more broadly," he said.
"They are living with the fear that this could happen to them."
Death threats, assaults, threats against parents, intimidation, hateful graffiti, harassment and vilification all added to the feelings of fear, Mr Ball said
What was new was the co-ordination of attacks through social media and algorithms steering people to extremist content, he said.
Justin Ellis, a criminology lecturer at Newcastle University, told the inquiry those who perpetrated the hate crimes were often motivated by a nostalgia for a sexual uniformity that never really existed.
Hate crimes and threats against LGBTQI people were driving some young people back to the closet out of fear, he said.
"Young queer adults are self-censoring. They are deciding they have to take more precautions than they typically would to protect their personal safety and that could be online or in person."
RMIT criminology lecturer Jarryd Bartle told the inquiry dating apps were misused to lure victims out to homophobic bashings.
They included "bait and bash attacks" in which groups of young men enticed gay or bisexual men to a location and assaulted them.
Many attacks caused injuries requiring hospitalisation.
"Victims were subject to homophobic abuse while being beaten and in some cases robbed," Mr Bartle said.
"These offences were clearly motivated by cruelty and a belief that gay and bisexual men are easy or morally permissible targets for violence, humiliation and blackmail."
Thrillseeking could be a motivator in attacks sometimes couched as "vigilante justice", with abusers posing online as underage then luring men to a beating, accusing them of being pedophiles, Mr Bartle said.
Officials from Grindr, the world's largest social networking app for gay, bi, trans, and queer people, told the inquiry the app was working with Australian police to prevent hate crimes.
Joe Hack, Grindr's head of global government affairs, said like any online platform, there were instances in which bad actors attempted to misuse the app, putting users at risk.
"Perpetrators using our platform to identify, target, and harm the very community we exist to serve represents a direct assault on everything we stand for," he told the committee from Washington DC.
Grindr worked with Australian police to minimise harm to its users and continuously invested in better tools and detection, he said.
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