764 Founder Bradley Cadenhead Gets 80-Year Sentence as FBI Flags Network as Tier 1 Threat
Updated
Updated · Slate · May 12
764 Founder Bradley Cadenhead Gets 80-Year Sentence as FBI Flags Network as Tier 1 Threat
1 articles · Updated · Slate · May 12
Bradley Cadenhead, who founded the online criminal network 764 at age 15, received an 80-year adult prison sentence in 2023 after his 2021 arrest on child sexual abuse material charges.
764 operated on Discord and Telegram, where members groomed and extorted mostly underage girls into self-harm, pornography, animal abuse and other escalating violence, then circulated the material as propaganda.
The report says repeated exposure to gore and suicide videos on mainstream platforms helped desensitize children before they were pulled into 764 and the wider "Com" ecosystem.
FBI Director Kash Patel has described 764 as a form of modern-day terrorism, and the FBI classifies it as a Tier 1 threat tied to nihilistic violent extremism.
The case is fueling wider scrutiny of algorithms, school-issued devices and new 2026 phone-use laws as governments weigh tougher protections for children online.
When do child victims of online gore communities become the perpetrators themselves?
Can we make the internet safe for kids without destroying the online privacy that protects everyone?
Is online nihilism a tech problem, or a symptom of a generation that has lost hope?