Conservatives have criticized US tech companies for years for censoring speech on social media.
Many conservatives are now under pressure to censor content on social media sites because of Charlie Kirk’s assassination.
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Last week, Kirk’s death at a speaking engagement in Utah resulted in a slew of unfavorable online comments about the activist, from insults to morbid celebrations.
Millions of viewers were exposed to the bloody images of Kirk’s final moments as graphic footage of his murder ricocheted across platforms.
Republican House Representative Anna Paulina Luna pleaded with Meta, X, and TikTok to remove any videos of Kirk’s death in the wake of the shooting, stating that “social media begins to desensitize humanity at some point.”
Republican governor of Utah Spencer Cox criticized social media as a “cancer” that had “directly played a role” in each recent assassination or attempted assassination.
Representative Clay Higgins of Louisiana promised to use his influence to “mandate an immediate ban for every post or commenter that belittles” the assassination.
After the chat app Discord on Monday confirmed that the suspected killer, 22-year-old Tyler Robinson, appeared to have accepted responsibility for the crime in a message sent to other users, a heated debate erupted over the role of social media.
A Republican-led US House of Representatives committee on Wednesday announced that it had asked the CEOs of Discord, Steam, Twitch, and Reddit to testify at a hearing on the “radicalization of online forum users” in October.
Some political right, which had previously criticized the alleged censorship of posts about topics ranging from the COVID-19 pandemic to the US Capitol attack on January 6, 2021, are at a change as a result of the social media reaction to Kirk’s death.
A hearing on “protecting speech from government interference and social media bias” was held in 2023 by the same Republican-led committee that was looking into the Discord and other platforms after Twitter removed a news report about Hunter Biden’s son, who was then-President,’s laptop.
In response to the political upheaval of Donald Trump and the fallout from Brexit, tech companies have since adopted looser moderation in response to shifting political trends.
After tech billionaire Elon Musk bought the platform in 2022, X, formerly known as Twitter, reduced its fact-checking and content-moderation efforts.
Meta announced the end of its third-party fact-checking initiative in January, claiming that its previous content moderation efforts had “gone too far.”
It is unclear what changes, if any, they might try to implement despite the change in the tone of Republicans’ rhetoric regarding free speech and social media.
After Kirk’s passing, Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson referred to social media as a political “toxin.” He has not yet introduced any legislation in this area.
On Monday, US Attorney General Pam Bondi made a pledge to use her Department of Justice to combat “hate speech,” a practice that is not permitted by the US Constitution.
In response to a backlash, including from prominent conservatives, Bondi later clarified that officials would concentrate on incitement and violent threats.
Trump, a frequent user of social media, has expressed conflicting opinions about the situation, telling reporters this week that while online platforms may turn “cancerous,” they might also turn out to be “great.”
Republicans who have backed the firing of numerous people deemed to have reacted insensitively to Kirk’s murder made the point that the US Constitution provides broad speech protections under the First Amendment but does not prohibit private companies from firing their employees over their online comments.
Jimmy Kimmel’s long-running TV show “indefinitely” was suspended by ABC on Wednesday for a monologue suggesting that the suspect in Kirk’s murder was a member of Trump’s MAGA movement.
Kimmel’s suspension came after the FCC chair suggested ABC could face regulatory action for the host’s remarks, blurring the lines between the private sector and government efforts to censor speech.
According to John Wihbey, director of the AI-Media Strategies Lab at Northeastern University, “The attorney general herself made comments about limiting hate speech online that have actually caused a backlash from other conservatives.”
Conservatives are reportedly conflicted about the policy implications of a terrible online event, which makes this controversy materially different from prior ones in this area.
Instead of responding to questions about whether their content moderation practices would change following Kirk’s death, Meta, X, and Reddit instead pointed Al Jazeera to their already-existing moderation practices.
Those include removing violent or graphic content and labeling it as glorifying, incite, or call for violence, and some other things.
A Meta spokesperson said that we are age-gating graphic videos to adults and putting them on a warning screen.
According to a Reddit spokesperson, the company “reached out to ensure moderators understand and abide by our Moderator Code of Conduct” as well as the Reddit Rules.
Requests for comment were not responded to by Bluesky, Discord, YouTube, or Snap.
The response to Kirk’s death has more to do with changing political landscapes under Trump, according to Dave Karpf, an associate professor of media and public affairs at George Washington University.
There are no indications that the pendulum should swing back in favor of content moderation. Instead, they want direct purges from the opposition to the regime, Karpf told Al Jazeera.
The government and the platforms used to act as though they had to create processes that were fundamentally fair and neutral, are the fundamental differences. Fundamental fairness or neutrality are of little use in the current government, according to Karpf.
