Social media has us in its grip and will not let go. Charlie Kirk’s killer is a case study
Charlie Kirk’s social media mastery was the key to his increase as an influence in conservative policy. Thus, the extent to which his death and consequences have played on these forums should not surprise.
In a microcosm of life today, social media is where the Americans went to treat last week in Utah and is the main tool that his supporters use to control those who, according to them, do not offer respect. The investigators investigated the time that the man accused of having killed Kirk, Tyler Robinson, spent in the “dark internet corners” – anti -social media, if you want – leading to his appearance would have supported the trigger.
On the other side of the world, while Kirk’s history was concerned with Americans, Nepal rushed to a spasm of violence that broke out when the government tried to ban social media platforms.
All this requires a more in -depth examination on the technologies that have changed our lives, how they control what we see and understand through algorithms, and the way in which we spend affect our vision of the world.
The Governor of Utah, the Republican Spencer Cox, believes that “cancer” is not a word strong enough to describe social media. “The most powerful companies in world history have understood how to hack our brain, make us addicted to indignation … and make us hate each other,” said Cox on Sunday on “Meet the Press” of NBC.
Democratic senator Brian Schatz of Hawaii urged the Americans via social media to “bring you together, read a book, exercise, do a whiskey,”
Frightening videos of the September 10 assassination of Kirk immediately overwhelmed sites like X, Tiktok and YouTube, and companies are still working to contain their spread. The theories of confrontation material and conspiracy are pushed into social media flows because they do precisely what they are designed – keep people on platforms for longer periods.
“I think we are in a moment here,” said Laura Edelson, professor at the Northeast University and expert in social media algorithms. “Our country is in digital mediation. When we interact with other people, how we interact with wider society, which is increasingly going on on flow algorithms. It is the most recent of a long way that the company has been modified by media technology. ”
The division content and the proliferation of the video of Kirk’s death may not have been the objective, but are the direct result of the decisions taken to maximize profits and reduce the moderation of the content, said Edelson.
“I do not think there are people turning their mustaches by saying how great it is that we divide society, with the exception of the Russian troll farms and, more and more, chinese troll farms,” she said.
The owner X Elon Musk posted on his site last week that although the speech can become negative, “it’s always good, there is a discussion.” President Donald Trump, who created his own social platform, was asked about Cox’s comments on Tuesday before leaving for a trip to the United Kingdom. He said that even if social media can create “deep and dark holes that are cancerous”, it was not so bad.
“Well, it’s not cancer in all respects,” he told journalists. “In some ways, it’s great.”
Conservative media star Ben Shapiro, who considered Kirk as a friend, admired how Kirk was ready to go to different places and speak to people who did not agree with him, a practice too rare at the time of social media.
“The functioning of social media is a disaster area, entirely a disaster area,” said Shapiro in an interview with Bari Weiss on a free press podcast. “There is no doubt that it makes people a worse place – and it is not a call to censorship.”
How people act on social networks is a bipartite problem, said Shapiro. The most omnipresent is the people who use the plural in the third person-“they” do something for “us,” he said. This has been the case when many people discuss Kirk’s death, although the shooter’s motivations are not clear and there is no evidence that his actions are something other than his.
The Liberal Meidastouch Media Company has collected inflammatory social posts of conservatives, in particular those who suggest that they are in “war”. Meanwhile, several conservatives have combed social media for articles which they consider negative towards Kirk, in some cases, seeking to make people fire. The Libs of the Tiktok site asked a school district of the Washington State to be funded because it refused to lower the flags to half of the staff.
The GOP representative, Randy Fine of Florida, asked people to highlight the negative kirk positions of anyone working in the government, in a place that receives public funding or who is authorized by the government – a teacher or a lawyer, for example. “These monsters want a fight?” He wrote on X. “Congratulations, they had one.”
A Washington Post columnist, Karen Attiah, wrote on Monday that she was dismissed for a series of Bluesky messages that expressed little sympathy for Kirk. But she wrote on Subpot that “not to perform exaggerated sorrow for white men who marry violence was not the same as to approve violence against them.” A spokesperson for the post refused to comment.
A large part of what people use to talk about politics – social media sites and cable television with algorithmic motivation – is designed to separate the Americans, said James Talarico, a Democratic State legislator in Texas who recently announced an offer for the American Senate. “We have to find our way to each other because it is the only way to continue this American experience,” he said on MSNBC.
Among the most persistent examples of these divisions are lies and information on the elections that have spread for years through online social channels. They undermined faith in one of the country’s foundation institutions and contributed to the rage that led Trump supporters to violently take the American capitol on January 6, 2021.
The question of whether a significant change is possible is an open question. Nepal disorders illustrated the dangers of government participation: social media sites have been closed and users protested, which suggests that it was a way to end the government’s criticism. Police opened fire during a demonstration, killing 19 people.
Persuading social media sites to change their algorithms is also a difficult battle. They experience attention and people spend as much time as possible over them. Unless advertisers are fleeing to fear being associated with violent messages, there is little incitement to change, said Jasmine Enberg, social media analyst at Emarketer.
Young people in particular become aware of the dangers of spending too much time on social networks, she said.
But turn off their phones? “The reality of the situation,” said Enberg, “is that there is a limit to how much they can limit their behavior.”
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The writers of the Associated Press Barbara Ortatay in San Francisco, Darlene Superville in Washington and Ali Swenson in New York and contributed to this report. David Bauder writes on the intersection of the media and entertainment for the AP. Follow him to http://x.com/dbauder and https://bsky.app/profile/dbauder.bsky.social.
