Conspiracy theories have flourished after the public assassination of right-wing influencer Charlie Kirk, with blame for his murder pointing in all directions.
CNN's Marshall Cohen reported that partisans on the left and right have pushed baseless claims about the Turning Point USA head's slaying all over social media, with more than 2 million unique posts on the topic on X, formerly Twitter, which the data analytics firm PeakMetrics said was roughly double the volume of posts after the attempted assassination of then-candidate Trump last year.
“This is the worst I’ve seen,” said Bret Schafer, a senior fellow at the nonpartisan think tank Alliance for Securing Democracy. “I’ve seen these cycles play out over and over, but the trajectory has gotten worse. This really is a case where both sides have engaged in irresponsible, if not reprehensible, behavior.”
Trump himself fanned the flames of conspiracy theories hours afterward, before anything about the suspect or his motives were revealed, by blaming Kirk's killing on “radical left political violence," and MAGA allies like Steve Bannon have speculated that alleged gunman Tyler Robinson is part of a broad national conspiracy, although investigators believe he acted alone.
Others have claimed that Israeli spies killed Kirk because he had been critical of the war in Gaza, and social media users have elevated fringe claims about supposedly suspicious drones spotted and allegedly dismantled security cameras at Utah Valley University.
"These ideas are uncorroborated," Cohen reported. "They're totally debunked, and some of them are just flat-out crazy. But as one disinformation expert told me, they don't need to make sense, actually, because the incentives on the internet are totally backwards. The influencers, podcasters and grifters who are pushing this stuff need to churn out inflammatory hot takes just like these so they can build their subscriber lists and keep the money flowing."