The term, as coined by political scientist Patricia M. Thornton at the University of Oxford, describes "a unique hybrid form of politico-religious mobilization" adopted by a handful of syncretic qigong (气功) groups that emerged in the People's Republic of China (PRC) during the late 1980s and early 1990s, and were subjected to extreme repression following the crackdown against banned religious and spiritual organizations in 1999.
Some cybersect members of groups, including Aum Shinrikyo and al Qaeda, engage in "repertoires of electronic contention,"[5] using websites and e-mail to mobilize participants for protest and contention, as well as hactivism (acts of electronic disruption) and even cyberterrorism[1] (acts of physical harm caused by the disruption of power grids, traffic control, and other systems of resource delivery and public safety).
"[8] When taken to the airwaves and posted on the internet, divisive sectarian language among Catholic and Protestant residents of post-agreement Northern Ireland has also been described as an outbreak of cybersectarianism by Ballymena-born BBC reporter, Declan Lawn, and others.
[9][10][11] In a similar vein, the term is also commonly used to describe the internecine internet-based partisan splintering among various factions of the Socialist Party of America,[12][13] and among members of the Communist League.
There is some evidence to suggest that the heavy reliance of such groups on the internet, a medium that not only facilitates but also encourages user interactivity and peer-to-peer information sharing, may present serious challenges to the maintenance of internal coherence and policing of orthodoxy by a central core of leaders.