Former white nationalist Caleb Cain held far-right beliefs before seeing footage of the March 15 terror attack.

When Caleb Cain watched the now-banned livestream of the March 15 mosque shootings, he was filled with shock and horror. But what made it worse, was that he recognised a part of himself in the shooter.

In the years before the Christchurch terror attack, Cain was very much immersed in far-right propaganda and the beliefs of white nationalists. It was only about six months before the attack that the now 27-year-old American started questioning and eventually renouncing those beliefs.

"When I heard [the mosque shooter] was a white nationalist, I went and read the manifesto and I watched the video. I don't want to say I was ever going to do what he did, but I saw a part of me in him," Cain said.

YOUTUBE Online content created by Lauren Southern and Stefan Molyneux played a big part in fostering Caleb Cain's former far-right views. (File photo)

"I read everything that he had read and I realised, that's exactly what I believed. I believed in weird watered-down versions of all these things, but it was the same stuff."

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Cain knew he had to help others who found themselves in a similar position, so started his own YouTube channel to counter far-right propaganda.

GETTY IMAGES Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern hugs a mosque-goer at the Kilbirnie Mosque on March 17, 2019, in Wellington.

Cain said it was a struggle with depression and anxiety that originally sent him on a search for meaning and purpose on the internet.

"I didn't have a good relationship with my family, I isolated myself from my friends. I didn't have the opportunity to go to college, I couldn't find a good job and I ended up going online to try and find out why my life was such a mess."

His internet searches led him to content by controversial far-right Canadian broadcaster Stefan Molyneux – a far-right activist known for promoting scientific racism and white supremacist views.

RICKY WILSON/STUFF Cain says the far-right movement online is is taking advantage of people.

Eventually Cain was accessing increasingly radical content, watching and listening to YouTube videos up to 12 hours a day.

"I became this super critical person and I would hold people in my life to this absurdly high standards ... because that is the kind of pressure [Molyneux] would put on people."

Cain alienated many people in his life. Liberal friends stopped discussing politics with him and a transgender friend cut off contact when he told them they were mentally ill.

MORNING REPORT/RNZ The Privacy Commissioner says Facebook violated New Zealand law by failing to stop the accused gunman from livestreaming his mass murder on March 15. (Interview first published March 21, 2019)

His beliefs started to waver when he found YouTube videos by political commentator Steven Bonnell, better known by his online alias Destiny, and Natalie Wynn, known as ContraPoints.

"I started talking to more people of colour and more transgender people. That made me see things were a lot more complicated than the far-right was telling me."

After the March 15 attack, Cain published a YouTube video about his own experience, hoping to reach out to others struggling with the same challenges.

He agrees white nationalism seems to particularly attract young men, but said the reasons for that were more complex than economic privilege or superficial racism.

"Our society has really not done a good job of talking to young men and especially young white men. They feel lost and disenfranchised. Yes, of course they have had a lot of privileges compared to other people, but from their perspective, they don't experience that.

"If you are some kid growing up in rural West Virginia, or some kid growing up in the middle of New Zealand, you don't feel that privileged. You feel lost and perhaps like everything is falling apart. And [far-right] people come and start scapegoating immigrants and manipulating your views."

Cain said young men need to be taught how to examine unprocessed racism and misogyny without feeling attacked.

"I feel like people are scared and worried in our society and the traditionalists are giving them an option that looks alluring because their version of society is something that used to exist.

"I want people to realise there are reasons people are buying into this ideology and there are things we can do to fix it. This movement online is taking advantage of them and we need to do something about it."

Cain will visit the Masjid An-Nur on Deans Ave in Christchurch to meet survivors and their families, and attend the March 15 remembrance service this week.