By India McCarty
Many have spoken out against social media platform’s algorithms in the wake of Charlie Kirk’s death, as graphic videos of the shooting were pushed to users — whether they wanted to see it or not.
“We are not wired as human beings, biologically, historically — we have not evolved in a way that we are capable of processing those types of violent imagery,” Utah Gov. Spencer Cox said at a recent press conference. “This is not good for us. It is not good to consume.”
Related: How to Talk to Your Kids About Graphic Violence They Might See Online
Videos and images of Kirk’s death were broadcast around the world in a matter of minutes, and many people were shocked and upset when this graphic content was pushed onto their social media timelines.
“We saw it from many different angles,” Keith Hanssen, a parent, told PBS. “It’s very graphic and it’s disturbing, even for me being almost 60 years old.”
His daughter Sarah, a college freshman, added, “It was just really hard to go online without seeing it. And I think I’m kind of desensitized to some things like that already, just because of how many times we read about things like school shootings and murders and stuff.”
“People really had to be vigilant about avoiding these images,” Roxane Cohen Silver, a professor of psychology, public health and medicine at the University of California, Irvine, told NPR.
Silver studies the effects of traumatic events like this on people’s mental and physical health.
Should social media make money off Charlie Kirk’s Death?
“The clearest message that I have after studying the impact of media exposure to tragedies since the Columbine High School shooting…is that there is no psychological benefit to viewing graphic, gruesome images of violence,” she explained. “For many, many people, it is associated with distress, anxiety, emotional numbness, nightmares, flashbacks, hypervigilance, symptoms of acute stress, symptoms over time of post-traumatic stress.”
Nicole Hemmer, a political historian at Vanderbilt University, told NPR, “It’s remarkable how much graphic violent media is just part of politics now.”
“Social media, which is where these images are being shared and these videos are being shared, rewards this kind of extreme content,” she continued. “People aren’t just sharing it because they want people to have this communal experience of having seen and witnessed this terrible event. But they are making money off of it. They’re gaining followers off of it.”
Hemmer concluded, “They are part of an outrage cycle…in which if you are out there sharing some of the most gruesome videos of the Charlotte murder, of Kirk’s assassination, then you are gaining credibility and influence in that social media ecosystem.”
As the images and videos of Kirk’s death continue to circulate on the internet, it is more important than ever to be aware of what your children are looking at online.
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