Beginning in the early 2000s, the term gang stalking became popularized to describe a different experience of repeated harassment which instead comes from multiple people who organize around a shared purpose, with no one person solely responsible.
[4] A 2016 article in The New York Times estimated that more than 10,000 people were participating in online communities "organized around the conviction that its members are victims of a sprawling conspiracy to harass thousands of everyday Americans with mind-control weapons and armies of so-called gang stalkers".
[2] Kershaw & Weinberger say, "Web sites that amplify reports of mind control and group stalking" are "an extreme community that may encourage delusional thinking" and represent "a dark side of social networking.
There were highly significant differences between the two samples on depressive symptoms, post-traumatic symptomatology and adverse impact on social and occupational function, with the self-declared victims of gang stalking being more severely affected.
[15] In 2022, a reported believer in gang stalking was accused of killing four people in Ohio; he uploaded a video before the shooting in which he said that he wanted to "help other targeted individuals",[14] and that he will conduct "the first counterattack against mind control in history".