Video of Kirk shooting easy to find

Immediately after Charlie Kirk was shot during a college event in Utah, graphic video of what happened was available almost instantly online, from several angles, in slow-motion and real-time speed. Millions of people watched — sometimes whether they wanted to or not as the videos autoplayed on social media platforms.

- BY BARBARA ORTUTAY AND KELVIN CHAN

JOE RAEDLE Getty Images ACTIVIST Charlie Kirk, 31, was killed last week.

Video was easy to find on X, on Facebook, on TikTok, on Instagram, on YouTube — even on President Trump's Truth Social. The platforms, generally, said they were removing at least some of the videos if they violated their policies, for instance if the person was glorifying the killing in any way. In other cases, warning screens were applied to caution people they were about to see graphic content.

Days after Kirk's death, videos were still easily found on social media, despite calls to remove them.

"It was not immediately obvious whether Instagram, for example, was just failing to remove some of the graphic videos of Charlie Kirk being shot or whether they had made a conscious choice to leave them up. And the reason that it that was so hard to tell is that, obviously, those videos were circulating really widely," said Laura Edelson, an assistant professor of computer science at Northeastern University.

The events illustrate the content moderation challenges platforms face in handling fast-moving real-time events, complicated by the death of a polarizing conservative activist who was shot in front of a crowd holding smartphones, recording the moment.

Ambiguous policies

It's an issue social media companies have dealt with before. Facebook was forced to contend with people wanting to livestream violence during a mass shooting in New Zealand in 2019. People have also live-streamed fights, suicides and slayings.