Minutes after conservative political activist Charlie Kirk was shot yesterday at a speaking engagement at Utah Valley University, jarring videos of the incident began circulating on apps like TikTok, Instagram, and X. In the immediate aftermath, the majority of the videos viewed by … did not contain content warnings. Many began autoplaying before viewers had the option to consent. And on X, an AI-generated recap of the incident falsely indicated that Kirk had survived the shooting.
Researchers tracking the spread of the shooting videos on social media say that major social platforms are falling short in enforcing their own content moderation rules, at a moment when political tensions and violence are flaring. And the video of Kirk being fatally shot is somehow falling into a policy loophole, threading the needle between allowable “graphic content” and the category of “glorified violence” that violates platform rules.
“It’s unbelievable how some of these videos are still up. And with the way this stuff spreads, it is absolutely impossible to take down or add warnings to all of these horrific videos if you don’t have a robust trust and safety program,” says Alex Mahadevan, the director of MediaWise at the Poynter Institute.
Over the past two years, social platforms like X, TikTok, Facebook, and Instagram have scaled back their content moderation efforts—in some cases eliminating the work of human moderators who previously acted as a crucial line of defense to protect users from viewing harmful content. Many platforms use AI tools to try to spot and label potentially damaging video content, but the companies don’t always share specifics about how these tools are deployed.
The videos of Kirk being shot show him sitting on a stool answering questions from students and other spectators. The moments before, during, and after he was killed were captured on smartphones and shared quickly on social media. Many videos show Kirk suddenly recoiling, having been shot, and blood pouring from the left side of his neck.
… viewed these videos across TikTok, Instagram, X, Facebook, Threads, and Bluesky. Some of the videos appeared organically in feeds or upon first opening the apps. Others were easily surfaced by searching for keyword terms such as “Charlie Kirk” and “Charlie Kirk shot.” On X, some users advised that people turn off autoplay so they wouldn’t accidentally view videos of the shooting.
“I don't think it is possible to prevent the initial distribution, but I think platforms can do better in preventing the massive distribution through algorithmic feeds, especially to people that did not specifically search for it,” says Martin Degeling, a researcher who audits algorithmic systems and works with organizations like the non-profit AI Forensics.
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