NASHVILLE, Tenn. (WSMV) – Metro Council is considering a bill that would task Metro Nashville Police and the Office of Youth Safety with creating a public education program to help parents and community members identify the warning signs of someone involved in violent online extremist groups.
In March, the FBI in Nashville warned parents of a surge in activity of the violent online groups like “764″ that target and exploit children on social media.
“They’re targeting children as young as 8 years old, and they’re getting to them through Roblox, through Discord, these online platforms,” District 4 Metro Council Member Mike Cortese said. “Parents think they’re just engaging with other children, but these people are on there specifically to manipulate them, and they’re pushing them to self-harm, to violence.”
Cortese says he started learning about the issue when talking to a constituent who studies it.
“What’s interesting, it’s not a left or right ideology, it’s genuinely an ideology of violence,” Cortese said. “These groups are accelerationists, so their goal is to accelerate the end of society.”
He says after seeing reporting on the 17-year-old shooter that killed one student and wounded another before turning the gun on himself at Antioch High School in 2025, he was inspired to make sure more people know how to protect their communities from the groups.
“That individual was connected to these groups,” Cortese said. “There was an individual up in Wisconsin, who was connected to the Antioch shooter, who was connected to this as well. If you can engage early enough before these groups really get their claws in the kid, you can help stop that manipulation and get the kid out of that rabbit hole.”
Cortese introduced a bill that would task Metro Police and the Office of Youth Safety with creating a public education program and campaign to educate parents, teachers and community members about the warning signs.
“You’ll see behavioral changes, they’ll start using different verbiage, they’ll start maybe harming themselves, you’ll see marks on their arms,” he said. “If we can teach people to identify these indicators, teach parents to be more intentional with what their kids are watching online, bring awareness to this issue, it’s a great first step to combating it.”
Although Cortese says Metro Council doesn’t have the authority to require the education programs in Metro Schools, he says he hopes to work with MNPS to make sure students hear the information, too.
The bill passed its first of three readings at Metro Council’s meeting on Tuesday night.
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