The Spread of Violence: Content Moderation in the Wake of Charlie Kirk‘s Shooting
the shooting and subsequent death of Charlie Kirk has ignited a renewed debate about content moderation on social media platforms, revealing a complex landscape of policies and enforcement. While platforms grapple wiht balancing free speech and user safety, graphic footage of the incident has rapidly circulated online, prompting concerns about psychological harm and potential radicalization.
Meta, parent company of Facebook and Instagram, is applying a ”Mark as Sensitive” warning label to footage of the shooting and age-gating it to users 18 and older. According to a Meta spokesperson, the company’s Violent and Graphic Content policies prohibit content that glorifies, represents, or supports the incident or perpetrator. Meta employs 15,000 individuals – the composition of which as employees or contractors was not specified - to review content. However, the widely circulated footage itself remains allowable, falling into a gray area of their policies unless deemed to violate the “glorified content” rule. Meta’s Community Standards, detailed in its online Openness Center, explicitly ban content related to terrorist attacks, hate events, multiple-victim violence, serial murders, or hate crimes, specifically prohibiting perpetrator-generated content or third-party imagery depicting the moment of attacks on visible victims.
X, formerly Twitter, permits the sharing of graphic media if it is “properly labeled, not prominently displayed and is not excessively gory or depicting sexual violence.” The platform explicitly prohibits content that is “explicitly threatening, inciting, glorifying, or expressing desire for violence.” Though, X did not respond to inquiries regarding whether the Kirk shooting video was considered “excessively gory” under its standards.
Concerns about the unchecked spread of the video on X were voiced by Ben Mahadevan of the Poynter Institute, who reported seeing the footage repeatedly without his consent, comparing the platform to “4Chan turned into a mainstream social media platform.” He also noted encountering the video on Facebook shortly after opening the platform.
Further complicating the situation, X’s AI chatbot, Grok, initially disseminated misinformation about the shooting, claiming Kirk was “fine and active as ever” hours after his death was announced. X did not respond to further questions from WIRED regarding Grok’s inaccurate statements.
TikTok did not respond to requests for comment. Bluesky, a newer social media platform, has taken a more proactive approach, suspending accounts that encourage violence and removing close-up videos of the event.
as of the time of this report, videos of the shooting continue to circulate online. Mahadevan warned of the potential psychological impact, stating, “This is all psychologically damaging to our society in ways we don’t understand yet.” He also highlighted the potential for radicalization,noting posts from users claiming the video had “radicalized” them,emphasizing the impact of seeing the violence rather than simply reading about it.
Additional reporting by Kylie Robison.
