Footage of his death was immediately available on social media platforms after conservative activist Charlie Kirk was shot dead on Wednesday.
Kirk was killed while speaking at an event on a university campus in Utah. The footage of him being shot while being filmed answering questions about mass shooting on platforms such as X, Instagram, Tiktok and Facebook was next time.
How could such graphic footage be played rounds on these platforms? All platforms have their own policies, but many have decided to allow videos like this to stay for coverage, according to Laura Edelson, an assistant professor at the Khoury Computer College of Computer College at Northeastern University.
“Many platforms have certain news world sensibility exemptions that mean that videos that may not comply with the platform's policies can remain on the platform if they are deemed newsworthy,” says Edelson, who studies the spread of harmful content through large online networks. “There are so many interpretations of these policies, usually coming from the people who run the platform, because if it is actively recommended, someone on the platform has made the decision that it's okay to not only host this content but actively recommend it to users.”
John Wihbey, an associate professor of media innovation and technology and director of the AI-Media Strategies Lab at Northeastern University, says that conversations about showing graphic content are ongoing in the media world, including social media.
In this case, he said the video of Kirk's death was newsworthy given the fact that he was a public figure killed in a public event.
“He is a prominent political activist who influences the sitting president,” says Weebey. “(He) may have moved some slices of youth to Trump camp in the 2024 election. This is a major public figure and has an influential presence regardless of his politics.”
Many platforms have policies that require removal or warning labels for graphic content. Both YouTube and Discord said they would remove footage from the filming. Tiktok announced on Thursday afternoon that it would also remove some of the filming video.
Edelson says many platforms have changed their policies over the years to allow them to host this type of footage.
“This is not a subtle change,” she says. “The platform has changed its policy. They issued an official statement saying they have a wider range of content that they allow.”
Wihbey says some platforms may be affected by decisions from other platforms when it comes to policies.
“Content standards and limitations always exist within the broader culture,” he adds. “Therefore, if some platforms are looking at a huge amount of views and engagement and clicks, they show they're not vain, so there's obviously business pressure to what's taking a more cautious stance if other platforms aren't looking at such traffic.
Edelson says that even if footage is allowed on the platform, the algorithm determines who will see it and whether it will be pushed to the user. There are also different ways in your feed, as all platforms have different policies regarding graphic content.
For example, Twitter/X and Instagram algorithms are driven by engagement, making them more likely to show users what content they interact with via comments, reactions, or shares. Twitter/X was explicitly built around this kind of broken news, Edelson adds, so it's more likely that footage from major events will spread there.
In contrast, YouTube's algorithms focus on how long someone stays with the content. Tiktik's algorithm is similar, but it blends a bit of both methods, says Edelson.
“One thing we know is that platforms that are really focused on using this high engagement tend to recommend more extreme content,” she adds. “This is obviously extreme content. It's a graphic video of someone's death, but it takes your attention very positively. That's why platforms like X have feeds that tend to recommend this kind of content.”
As a result, it may be difficult for users to avoid this video.
“This is a good time to take a break from social media,” adds Edelson.
