Foreign enemies are posting outrageous claims about Charlie Kirk's death on social media as our adversaries look to exploit the event to divide America further.
In addition to the ever-present Russians, Chinese and Iranian operatives are spreading wild theories about the assassination, with Iranians claiming that Zionist conspirators murdered Kirk and the Chinese portraying the U.S. as "violent, polarized and dysfunctional," reports the Associated Press.
“Charlie Kirk’s Death and the Coming Civil War,” tweeted Russian ultranationalist Alexander Dugin, often referred to as "Putin's Brain." "Was Charlie Kirk's Killer a Pro?" asked Sputnik News, an outlet close to the Kremlin.
“We’ve seen multiple Russian campaigns attempting to exploit” Kirk’s killing, said Joseph Bodnar, senior research manager at the Institute for Strategic Dialogue. Some of the claims are recycled ones that emerged from American users. “They’re picking up domestic actors and amplifying them.”
In each case, those spreading the disinformation have tailored it for their own ends. Chinese propaganda has focused on the violent nature of Kirk’s death, painting the U.S. as a nation of violent gun owners and political extremists.
Russian voices have tried to tie Kirk’s death to U.S. support for Ukraine, even spreading a conspiracy theory that the Ukrainian government killed Kirk because of his criticism of that aid.
Pro-Iranian groups took a different tack, claiming Israel was behind Kirk’s death and that the suspect was set up to take the fall. This conspiracy theory caught on with white supremacist groups in the U.S., showing how corrosive claims can easily spread online despite oceans and linguistic and cultural barriers.
Naturally, the disinformation has elicited calls for "cracking down" on speech. Imran Ahmed, CEO of the Center for Countering Digital Hate, which tracks online disinformation, says social media companies should do more to stop both foreign disinformation and domestic calls for violence.
Aside from taking down threats, what else can social media companies do? Who decides what's "out of bounds" as far as speech is concerned?
While we're at it, who decides what is "disinformation" and what isn't?
"Posts calling for retaliatory violence following Kirk’s death have been seen 43 million times on X alone, according to the center’s research," reports AP. Counting posts is one thing, but shouldn't we be far more concerned about the impact those posts are having?
Following the assassination attempt on Democratic Rep. Gabby Giffords in 2011, the left dug up an ad put out by Sarah Palin's group "targeting" congressional districts. One of those districts that featured a bullseye was Giffords.
It was a ludicrous attempt to connect the shooter to Palin and the Republicans, but leading Democrats echoed the charge. No link between the map and the shooter was ever uncovered, but that didn't stop the left from repeating the smear and using similar tactics against the GOP.
There is absolutely no evidence (and none is likely to emerge) that suggestions on social media have ever led to direct action. The left says that some deranged, mentally ill person could see the posts and act upon them. It's their way of justifying censoring "hate speech."
“There is a tremendous amount of disinformation we are tracking,” Utah Gov. Spencer Cox, a Republican, said at a recent press conference about Kirk’s killing. “What we are seeing is our adversaries want violence. We have bots from Russia, China, all over the world that are trying to instill disinformation and encourage violence.”
It is universally accepted among politicians that ordinary people can't tell the difference between "news" and "disinformation." Thus, there is an urge to censor social media. I'd be much more concerned if there were a rash of revenge killings for Kirk's murder that target the left, inspired by Russian bots.
Since that's not the case, nor is it likely to be the case, tell the politicians to keep their grubby hands off social media.
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