WASHINGTON: Russia moved to amplify online conspiracy theories about Charlie Kirk’s killing just hours after it happened, seeding social media with the frightening claim that America is slipping into civil war.
Chinese and pro-Iranian groups also spread disinformation about the shooting, with those loyal to Iran’s interests backing antisemitic conspiracy theories while bots linked to Beijing claimed that Kirk’s death shows that the United States is violent, polarized and dysfunctional.
America’s adversaries have long used fake social media accounts, online bots and disinformation to depict the US as a dangerous country beset with extremism and gun violence. Kirk’s killing has provided another opportunity for those overseas eager to shape public understanding while inflaming political polarization.
“Charlie Kirk’s Death and the Coming Civil War,” tweeted Russian ultranationalist Alexander Dugin, whose influence earned him the moniker ” Putin’s brain,” referring to Russia’s president.
Pro-Russian bots blamed Democrats and predicted more violence. Russian state media published English-language articles with headlines claiming a conspiracy orchestrated by shadowy forces: “Was Charlie Kirk’s Killer a Pro?”
Foreign disinformation makes up a tiny fraction of the overall online discussion about Kirk’s death, but it could undermine any efforts to heal political divisions or even spur further violence.
“We’ve seen multiple Russian campaigns attempting to exploit” Kirk’s killing, said Joseph Bodnar, senior research manager at the Institute for Strategic Dialogue. In many cases, the campaigns aren’t adding new claims but are recycling ones that emerged from American users. “They’re picking up domestic actors and amplifying them.”
Adversaries tailor disinformation
In each case, those spreading the disinformation have tailored it for their own ends. Chinese propaganda has focused on the violent nature of Kirk’s death, painting the US as a nation of violent gun owners and political extremists.
Russian voices have tried to tie Kirk’s death to US support for Ukraine, even spreading a conspiracy theory that the Ukrainian government killed Kirk because of his criticism of that aid.
Pro-Iranian groups took a different tack, claiming Israel was behind Kirk’s death and that the suspect was set up to take the fall. This conspiracy theory caught on with white supremacist groups in the US, showing how corrosive claims can easily spread online despite oceans and linguistic and cultural barriers.
The influence campaigns come as the US has rolled back government efforts to expose foreign disinformation.
On Wednesday the State Department announced it was ending its remaining efforts to counter foreign disinformation, following a decision earlier this year to shutter the Global Engagement Center, an office that had called out Russian, Chinese and Iranian disinformation in the past. Republicans had targeted the center and its mission because of what they said was its censorship of conservative ideas.
False and misleading claims can spread quickly following big news events as people go online to look for information. Artificial intelligence programs that can create lifelike video and audio can make it even harder to find the truth, as can AI chatbots that routinely offer up false information.
It happened again following Kirk’s killing, when misinformation about the shooting and the suspect quickly spread online.
In recent years, groups looking to spread confusion or distrust have seized on hurricanes, wars, the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the US Capitol, the COVID-19 pandemic and other disasters, as well as the attempted assassinations of President Donald Trump.
The details vary, but the conspiracy theories pushed by foreign adversaries all suggest American institutions — the government, the media, law enforcement, health care — are failing and can no longer be trusted, and that more violence is likely.
Calls for social media companies to crack down
Regardless of the source of the information, social media companies should do more to stop both foreign disinformation and domestic calls for violence, said Imran Ahmed, CEO of the Center for Countering Digital Hate, which tracks online disinformation.
Posts calling for retaliatory violence following Kirk’s death have been seen 43 million times on X alone, according to the center’s research, though it can’t say which posts came from foreign sources.
Platforms like X “are failing catastrophically to limit the reach of posts that celebrate murder and mayhem,” Ahmed said.
Russia, China and Iran have all denied targeting Americans with disinformation. Officials in China have pushed back on claims that Chinese social media bots are being used to amplify false claims about the Kirk shooting.
“China condemns all unlawful and violent acts. That said, we firmly oppose some US politicians accusing China of ‘instilling disinformation and encouraging violence,’” a spokesperson for the Chinese Foreign Ministry posted on X.
Russia likewise rejected the accusations of spreading misinformation about Kirk’s death. A.V. Bondarev, a spokesperson for Russia’s embassy in Washington, wrote in an email to The Associated Press that “Russia does not interfere and does not intend to interfere in the internal affairs of other states, including the United States.”
“We consider it unacceptable that this tragedy is being used as a pretext to fuel anti-Russian hysteria,” Bondarev wrote.
For authorities trying to keep the public informed, the false claims about Kirk’s death are a potentially dangerous effort to hijack American discourse.
“There is a tremendous amount of disinformation we are tracking,” Utah Gov. Spencer Cox, a Republican, said at a recent press conference about Kirk’s killing. “What we are seeing is our adversaries want violence. We have bots from Russia, China, all over the world that are trying to instill disinformation and encourage violence.”
Cox urged people to ignore bogus claims that seem designed to elicit fear — and suggested that Americans log off social media and spend time with family instead.
