Washington
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Baseless conspiracy theories about the killing of conservative activist Charlie Kirk have exploded on social media in the week since the shooting, with partisans from both sides pushing a dizzying array of claims at a speed rarely seen before, experts say.
There have been more than 2 million unique posts on X, formerly Twitter, referencing conspiracy theories about Kirk’s killing, according to PeakMetrics, a nonpartisan data analytics firm. That’s roughly double the volume of posts using similar terms after the attempted assassination of then-candidate Donald Trump last year in Pennsylvania.
The avalanche of unverified and unhinged claims from online influencers, podcasters and grifters is now commonplace after any shocking news event or mass shooting.
But this time, graphic footage of Kirk’s death instantly went viral. And there were obvious political implications, too: Kirk led a MAGA youth movement and was a lightning rod for many liberals and even with groups that outflanked him on the right. Plus, many Internet personalities make a living from churning out inflammatory content designed to spark uproar.
“This is the worst I’ve seen,” said Bret Schafer, a senior fellow at the Alliance for Securing Democracy, a nonpartisan think tank that tracks disinformation. “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.”
On the night of the shooting, before the suspect was identified or anything was known about his motive or whether there were any co-conspirators, Trump himself blamed the assassination on “radical left political violence” and the “organizations that fund it and support it.”
Trump allies like Steve Bannon have pushed the idea that Kirk was killed as part of a broad national conspiracy, even though investigators said they believe the suspect, Tyler Robinson, acted alone. Liberal pundits have argued that Robinson was on Kirk’s political right, despite mounting evidence that he disliked Kirk’s conservative views.
Others, leaning on antisemitic tropes, claimed Israeli spies murdered Kirk because he was starting to stray from his longstanding support for Israel. A garden variety of apolitical theories have also gone viral, including one about a supposedly suspicious drone flying above Kirk’s rally, or about nearby cameras being dismantled afterward.
The conspiracies are flourishing amid – and due to – an already tense environment.
A Reuters/Ipsos poll conducted after the shooting found that 71% of Americans think American society “is broken,” and 66% are concerned about political violence hitting their community. Memetica, a threat intelligence company, found that mentions of “civil war” and “race war” spiked substantially on fringe web platforms after Kirk’s killing, according to data reviewed by CNN.
“This was always going to be a catalyst for people’s worst impulses,” said Mike Rothschild, an author who has written extensively about conspiracy theories. “Human beings are not designed to watch graphic close-up footage of someone being murdered. That’s immediate fodder for conspiracy theories. It makes you feel like the gloves are off.”
One of the most haywire theories emerging from the left is that Trump orchestrated Kirk’s murder to distract the public from the Jeffrey Epstein scandal, as pressure mounts for the release of files that could further link Trump to the child sex offender.
Other liberal figures racked up millions of views on X promoting baseless claims of purported discrepancies with the handling of Kirk’s corpse, among other theories.
In the frenzied days after Robinson’s arrest, Internet sleuths scoured his digital footprint for clues about his political allegiances. A leading theory emerged among Trump critics that Robinson was a “groyper” – a supporter of Nick Fuentes, the white nationalist and Holocaust denier who has railed against Kirk for the past few years.
“I saw a lot of people suspecting that [Robinson] hated Kirk because Kirk wasn’t racist enough or antisemitic enough,” Rothschild said. “That seems extremely unlikely now.”
One of those people was Heather Cox Richardson, a historian who writes one of the most popular politics newsletters on Substack, with 2.7 million subscribers. In a Sunday post, she claimed that Robinson “was not someone on the left,” citing his Republican-leaning family, and “appears to have embraced the far right, disliking Kirk for being insufficiently radical.”
In response to CNN’s questions about her assertions, Richardson said in a text message Wednesday that, “I included that one sentence based on what we knew at the time,” adding, “I am not wedded to any theory at all about Robinson’s motives.”
The “groyper” connection was always circumstantial at best. And prosecutors revealed in court filings on Tuesday that Robinson’s mother told police he “started to lean more to the left” in the past year. Prosecutors also said Robinson told his romantic partner, who is transgender, that he shot Kirk because he “had enough of his hatred.”
Immediately after the shot rang out, before any facts were known, experts observed right-wing influencers flooding social media with declarations that the shooter was a Democrat, or was transgender, or had ties to Antifa, the far-left anti-fascist group.
Late-night TV host Jimmy Kimmel also weighed in on this dynamic, saying Monday that MAGA allies were “desperately trying to characterize (Robinson) as anything other than one of them.” Trump administration officials then threatened to revoke ABC’s affiliate licenses in retaliation, and the network announced Wednesday that it was indefinitely pulling Kimmel’s show from the airwaves.
Trump ally Laura Loomer suggested Robinson might be part of a “terror cell.” Other right-wing figures also claimed Robinson was a “patsy” and that the federal government was covering up a far-reaching conspiracy involving universities and liberal groups – even though Trump loyalists run the FBI and Justice Department.
“It makes no sense, but it doesn’t need to make sense,” Rothschild said. “These are people who are desperate to stay in the conversation. They need to put out these controversial takes to sell merch, build subscriptions and hold onto their audience.”
FBI Director Kash Patel inadvertently fueled these right-wing allegations of a government cover-up by releasing inaccurate information about the investigation, including a premature announcement that the suspect had been captured by police.
“The FBI made a lot of mistakes,” Rothschild said. “That’s an added complication.”
Experts say the most pervasive theory is that Israel killed Kirk because he started softening his longstanding support for the country as the Gaza war drags on.
There is zero public evidence tying Israel to the crime and Israeli leaders have publicly mourned Kirk, including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who said the conspiracy theory is “insane” and being pushed by people who “hate the Jewish state.”
PeakMetrics found this was “by far the largest” Kirk-related conspiracy theory circulating on X, with over 1.3 million posts, according to a report obtained by CNN.
Among those peddling this theory are conspiracy theorist Alex Jones and right-wing influencer Candace Owens, as well as fringe independent journalists on the far left.
They’ve amplified claims from dubious sources that, weeks before Kirk was killed, he expressed fear for his life and told associates he was threatened by supporters of Israel who were upset about some of his recent comments. People involved in this supposed “blackmail attempt” have said these theories are false, antisemitic and slanderous.
Iranian state-run media has “latched onto” this theory and has been pushing it heavily online, said Schafer, from the Alliance for Securing Democracy, which tracks attempts by foreign governments to influence US politics. (His group was scrutinized by House Republicans for its efforts to combat Russian disinformation after the 2016 election.)
“Iran isn’t the originator of this theory, but they are promoting it,” Schafer said. “It’s very convoluted, and it doesn’t make a lot of sense, given that Kirk was very pro-Israel. But consistency and logic are never a prerequisite for this kind of propaganda.”