Al Jazeera Platforms that loosened moderation in the Trump era are now under scrutiny over online reaction to activist’s killing.
By Erin Hale
For years, US tech giants were criticised by conservatives for censoring speech on social media.
Now, social media platforms are facing pressure to do more to police content from many conservatives incensed over the assassination of right-wing activist Charlie Kirk.
Kirk’s killing during a speaking event in Utah last week unleashed a wave of negative commentary about the activist online, ranging from criticism of his conservative views to morbid celebrations of his death.
Graphic footage of Kirk’s murder also ricocheted across platforms, exposing millions of people to gory images of his final moments.
In the hours after the killing, Republican House Representative Anna Paulina Luna urged Meta, X and TikTok to take down videos of Kirk’s death, warning that “at some point, social media begins to desensitise humanity”.
Utah Governor Spencer Cox, a Republican, blasted social media as a “cancer” that had played a “direct role” in every assassination or attempted assassination of recent years.
Louisiana Representative Clay Higgins promised to use his influence to “mandate an immediate ban for life of every post or commenter that belittled” the assassination.
Controversy over the role of social media deepened after the chat platform Discord on Monday confirmed that the suspected killer, 22-year-old Tyler Robinson, appeared to have taken responsibility for the crime in a message to other users.
On Wednesday, a Republican-led US House of Representatives committee said it had asked the CEOs of Discord, Steam, Twitch and Reddit to testify at an October hearing on the “radicalisation of online forum users”.
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Read Full Article Here…(aljazeera.com)
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