In the week since the assassination of Turning Point USA co-founder Charlie Kirk in Utah, experts say social media has played a damaging role in how its users consume violent content and how law enforcement engages with misinformation amid rapidly developing events.
Before Kirk’s alleged assassin was arrested late last week, theories abounded on social media about the shooter’s identity and motivation. Not long after the fatal shooting, online investigators misidentified the shooter as one of several people: George Zinn, Michael Mallinson, or Skye Valadez.
Zinn’s name was widely circulated when he was arrested at Utah Valley University immediately after the shooting. It was later revealed that he falsely confessed to the crime in the hopes of distracting police from the suspected gunman, now known to be Tyler Robinson. Zinn was charged with obstruction of justice, a second-degree felony. However, he played no direct role in the shooting.
Mallinson, who bears a resemblance to Zinn, discovered he was wrongly accused when his daughter had told him the news after he woke up from a nap at his Toronto home. And Valadez’s name went viral when 4chan mistakenly identified the Utah musician as the shooter based on her SoundCloud track titled “Charlie Kirk Dead at 31.” She deleted the song less than 24 hours after Kirk’s death.
While they may be well-intentioned in trying to find the shooter, social media detectives may be doing more harm than good by spreading false, unverified claims about investigations as they unfold.
“So many people were trying to crowdsource what had happened as if they were amateur sleuths,” Jeffrey Blevins, a journalism professor at the University of Cincinnati, told the Washington Examiner. “None of this is helpful at all.”
He said law enforcement needs to counter misinformation about active investigations that would otherwise be hindered by false claims immediately, although he acknowledged that’s an “impossible task.”
James Alan Fox, a criminologist at Northeastern University, argued that authorities should not “change their public information strategies out of concern for those who might use it to spread rumor and misinformation” because “rumor and misinformation can spread in an official information vacuum.” An information vacuum occurs when details aren’t provided in a timely or accurate manner during a crisis.
An Army veteran, Blevins was quite amused by one of the first theories that Kirk’s killing was a professional hit. He explained how someone could very easily train in a couple of months to fire a single shot from 200 yards, the distance between the suspect and Kirk.
Once authorities announced the apprehension of the 22-year-old suspected shooter last Friday, falsehoods about him quickly spread online, too.
Depending on one’s political affiliation, Robinson was either a registered Republican or a member of the Democratic Socialists of America. Neither of these scenarios was true. Rather, he was a registered voter unaffiliated with any political party and was confused for a similar-looking member of the country’s largest socialist organization.
“When you start putting these narratives out there, people tend to accept the narrative that fits their politics the most, and then they stick with it,” Blevins said. “And it makes it more difficult, when the facts do begin to emerge, to change their opinion.”
Fox agreed, saying opinions are often reinforced when people interact with others who are like-minded.
“There have always been extremists and conspiracy thinkers, but prior to social media, they were mostly alone in their beliefs,” Fox said. “Not only does the internet, by way of social media, enable them to find others with similar beliefs, but that serves to reinforce their opinions.”
Gov. Spencer Cox (R-UT) spoke about the dangers of misinformation and disinformation surrounding Kirk’s murder last week, saying foreign adversaries want nothing more than to stoke political violence in the United States.
“There is a tremendous amount of disinformation,” he said at a press conference last Thursday. “Our adversaries want violence. We have bots from Russia, China, all over the world that are trying to instill disinformation and encourage violence. I would encourage you to ignore those.”
Cox has been outspoken about his opposition to social media since taking office in 2021 and has signed legislation that limits social media use by minors in Utah.
In recent days, the governor has talked about the adverse effects that social media has on younger generations related to their mental health. Graphic videos, including the ones capturing the moment that the single bullet pierced Kirk’s neck, contribute to this phenomenon.
Melissa Whitson, a psychology professor at the University of New Haven, explained how both children and adults can experience emotional or psychological distress in what’s known as vicarious trauma after watching a graphic video.
“The younger the child is, the less that child is able to process seeing a graphic video and make sense of it, and often confusing what is real and what is not,” she said. “Older children may also have difficulty understanding how to recognize or cope with any emotions or feelings that arise in response to a graphic video. They often report being fine, but then later the images may come back to them when they are trying to sleep or are unable to distract themselves.”
While the effects are particularly acute for children, adults who have experienced trauma firsthand may feel a greater impact. Regardless of each person’s age and experiences, all are affected on some level.
Last week, social media platforms were dominated by videos not only of Kirk’s killing but also the fatal stabbing of Ukrainian refugee Iryna Zarutska on a light rail train in Charlotte, North Carolina.
Blevins said graphic, unedited videos without any context in those two cases can certainly lead to more heightened, less productive political rhetoric based on the strong emotions elicited.
“That’s a very visceral thing to experience, and it’s likely to spark more emotions that way rather than just hearing about it,” he added. “Things that hit emotional chords tend to get more traction, more response.”
Blevins then discussed three possible ways for society to address how social media fuels political polarization.
The first is regulation by social media companies, which he says need to grapple with how to police violent content in real time. Certain platforms, namely TikTok, have already censored content depicting Kirk’s murder. The other two methods are government regulation, which Blevins says is unlikely, and self-regulation, which social media users can easily practice.
Describing social media as a “cancer on our society,” Cox argued humans are “not wired” to process violent imagery and contrasted the current social media age to live television — the medium that broadcast the aftermath of former President John F. Kennedy’s assassination in 1963 and the death of assassin Lee Harvey Oswald on live TV just days later.
“You have to go back to JFK to have seen a video live of something like this happening,” Cox said last Friday during a press conference about the apprehended suspect who allegedly killed Kirk.
“If you look at true political assassinations in this country of someone of this stature, this feels a lot like the late ’60s,” he continued, “and having one so gruesomely displayed on camera in all of our hands and in all of our pockets.”
The governor then urged people to log off the phone, “touch grass,” and spend time with their families. While issuing the plea, he referenced Kirk’s advice for escaping from social media.
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“A few months ago — I referenced this last night — Charlie posted to social media, ‘When things are moving very fast and people are losing their minds, it’s important to stay grounded. Turn off your phone, read scripture, spend time with friends, and remember, internet fury is not real life. It’s going to be OK,'” Cox recounted.
“He again said, ‘When you stop having a human connection with someone you disagree with, it becomes a lot easier to commit violence.’ He said, ‘What we as a culture have to get back to is being able to have reasonable agreement where violence is not an option.'”
