One other TikTok video Degeling shared with WIRED confirmed a slow-motion, close-up angle of the bullet hitting Kirk’s neck. The tone of the video was conspiratorial: The consumer who uploaded it added spooky music and a digitally narrated voice, asking, “What’s the black factor on his shirt and why did it transfer like this earlier than he received shot?” As of Thursday morning, the video was nonetheless on-line. It had been up for eight hours and had greater than 900 feedback (with many saying the “black factor” was a microphone).
As of Thursday morning, on Instagram, a seek for “Charlie Kirk shot” surfaced a close-up video of the incident as the primary consequence. The video autoplays as a thumbnail, with out warning. On the time of writing, the video had 15.3 million views.
Not solely are the Kirk taking pictures movies spreading quickly, however some are in clear violation of the platforms’ social media insurance policies. For instance, TikTok’s phrases of use state that the corporate doesn’t permit “gory, ugly, disturbing, or extraordinarily violent content material.”
“We’re saddened by the assassination of Charlie Kirk and ship our deepest condolences to his spouse Erika, their two younger kids, and their household and pals,” TikTok spokesperson Jamie Favazza stated in an announcement. “These horrific violent acts haven’t any place in our society. We stay dedicated to proactively imposing our Neighborhood Tips and have carried out further safeguards to forestall folks from unexpectedly viewing footage that violates our guidelines.”
On different platforms, the Kirk video falls right into a grey space. Meta’s overarching coverage is to age-restrict sure content material, require warning labels, and take away some graphic depictions of violence.
A spokesperson for Meta stated that, per the corporate’s Violent and Graphic Content material insurance policies, it’s making use of a “Mark as Delicate” warning label to footage of the Kirk taking pictures, and are age-gating it to customers 18 and older. The spokesperson additionally stated that the corporate has 15,000 folks reviewing content material for Meta—although it didn’t say whether or not these are workers or contractors—and that it doesn’t permit movies that glorify, symbolize, or help the incident or perpetrator.
Meta additionally states in its on-line Transparency Middle that it doesn’t permit content material of “terrorist assaults, hate occasions, multiple-victim violence or tried multiple-victim violence, serial murders, or hate crimes perpetrator-generated content material regarding such assaults; or third-party imagery depicting the second of such assaults on seen victims.” Nonetheless, the extensively circulated footage of Kirk being shot, for now, is allowable. It would get a warning label and be age-gated, however not faraway from Meta platforms except decided to be in clear violation of the “glorified content material” coverage.
X tells customers that they “might share graphic media whether it is correctly labeled, not prominently displayed and isn’t excessively gory or depicting sexual violence.” The platform notes that content material that’s “explicitly threatening, inciting, glorifying, or expressing need for violence” is just not allowed.
Mahadevan, from the Poynter Institute, says that he noticed the Kirk taking pictures video with out his consent a number of occasions on X on Wednesday, likening it to a model of “4Chan became a mainstream social media platform.” (He additionally says he opened up Fb on Thursday morning and instantly noticed a video of Kirk being shot.)
X didn’t reply to requests for remark or questions on whether or not the Kirk video was thought of “excessively gory” by X’s requirements.
However X seems to have one other content material moderation downside: A couple of hours after Kirk was pronounced lifeless, the AI chatbot Grok, which runs on X, insisted that Kirk was “positive and energetic as ever.” X didn’t reply to additional questions from WIRED about Grok’s misinformation concerning the Kirk taking pictures.
Bluesky has stated it’s suspending accounts that encourage violence and taking down close-up movies of the occasion.
For now, the movies of Charlie Kirk’s taking pictures proceed to unfold on-line.
“That is all psychologically damaging to our society in methods we don’t perceive but,” Mahadevan stated. “We’re seeing posts on X of individuals saying, ‘Congratulations, you’ve radicalized me.’ And a part of that’s as a result of they’re seeing the video of Kirk being killed. They’re not simply studying about it. They’re really seeing it.”
Further reporting by Kylie Robison.
Up to date: 9/11/2025 4:00 pm EST: This story has been up to date with remark from TikTok and to mirror the present institutional affiliation of a researcher.
