Right-Wing Activists Urge Followers to Expose Those Celebrating Charlie Kirk Killing

In the wake of Charlie Kirk’s assassination, right-wing influencers and at least one Trump administration official have actively encouraged people to scour the internet for remarks celebrating the killing and to expose those who have posted them online.

The widespread and fast-moving campaign of naming-and-shaming has already resulted in countless lost jobs, professional suspensions and internal investigations, exacerbating the already fraught tensions over the shooting that exist online.

The killing of Mr. Kirk, a hugely popular activist closely aligned with President Trump, was immediately met on the right by a tidal wave of grief-stricken rage on Wednesday afternoon — one that quickly turned into a thirst for vengeance. Several online social media personalities, some with enormous followings, called almost in unison for “war” to be waged against those on the left they perceive to be their enemies.

Among those personalities have been far-right agitators like Laura Loomer and Chaya Raichik, who runs a large account on X called Libs of TikTok. Since the shooting, they and dozens of other online influencers have taken it upon themselves to recruit ordinary Americans to turn in fellow citizens for making comments about Mr. Kirk that may be nasty or disparaging, but are likely protected by the First Amendment.

But while the exposures may occur online, there have been consequences in the real world.

A Secret Service employee was placed on administrative leave after stating on Facebook that Mr. Kirk had “spewed hate and racism on his show,” said the agency’s spokesman, Anthony Guglielmi. The leaders of the Education Departments in Florida and Oklahoma both issued statements threatening to investigate and punish teachers who made any positive comments about the assassination, and some teachers in Texas and Iowa were either fired or placed on leave.

After Michael Mann, a prominent climate scientist who works at the University of Pennsylvania, reposted a message referring to Mr. Kirk as the “head of Trump’s Hitler Youth,” Dave McCormick, the state’s Republican senator, called it “despicable” and urged the university to “take immediate, decisive action.”

“It is very disappointing that Senator McCormick has mis-portrayed me in this way, let alone made such inflammatory demands,” Mr. Mann wrote in an email. He added, “I was not criticizing Charlie Kirk. I was criticizing those who were lionizing him as a paragon of free speech and good faith discourse.”

Rose Pugliese, a Colorado state lawmaker who is a Republican, asked Gov. Jared Polis, a Democrat, on Thursday to fire a state employee who had accused Mr. Kirk online of being “a white man who spews horrid” words “against every marginalized community.”

Representative Clay Higgins, Republican of Louisiana, said that he planned to use “Congressional authority” to force tech companies to “ban for life” any person who “belittled the assassination of Charlie Kirk.” And John C. Phelan, the secretary of the Navy, posted a message saying that sailors or Marines found to be “displaying contempt toward a fellow American who was assassinated” would be “dealt with swiftly and decisively.”

Leaders of other branches of the armed forces posted similar messages.

Tim Weninger, a professor at the University of Notre Dame who studies the ways social media is used to dehumanize people and incite violence, described the targeting campaign as a new front in online rhetoric.

“I haven’t seen something like this on social media in America, really ever — it’s a unique moment,” he said.

He characterized the purge as a kind of backlash to the escalating violent rhetoric online over the past several years.

“What we are seeing is that people say it’s enough of this, it has to stop,” Mr. Weninger said. “And if you lose your job because of comments you made celebrating the killing, that’s a consequence of your speech.”

The attention brought to those attacking Mr. Kirk has come not only from big social media accounts, but also from dozens of smaller ones that have joined in the effort with a kind of gleeful energy.

One clearinghouse for the campaign, parts of which were earlier reported by Wired, is a website that appears to have been registered just three hours after Mr. Kirk was killed. The site includes a tip line for submissions and includes photos of the people who disparaged him or cheered his death, along with personal information like their email addresses, place of residence and employer.

As of Friday afternoon, 41 people had been named on the site. Its anonymous creator posted that the site had received almost 20,000 submissions and said it would put them in a searchable public database of “radical activists calling for violence,” while also denying that it was “a doxxing website.”

“This website is a lawful data aggregator of publicly available information,” the note read. “It has been created for the purposes of public education. We seek to collect and archive instances of individuals promoting or glorifying of political violence.”

Christopher Landau, the deputy secretary of state, issued a separate call on Thursday morning, asking his more than 200,000 followers on X to reach out to him with information about “foreigners who glorify violence and hatred.”

“I have been disgusted to see some on social media praising, rationalizing, or making light of the event, and have directed our consular officials to undertake appropriate action,” Mr. Landau wrote, referring to Mr. Kirk’s killing. “Please feel free to bring such comments by foreigners to my attention so that the @StateDept can protect the American people.”

It remains unclear whether Mr. Landau or other officials at the State Department have acted on any of the numerous tips that came in response to his call-out. A department spokesman said that the administration did not believe that it “should grant visas to persons whose presence in our country does not align with U.S. national security interests.”

Left-wing activists have used similar tactics in the past to draw attention to overtly racist or anti-gay remarks online, in an effort to bring public censure to the people posting them. Right-wing activists have pushed back hard against these efforts, branding them as examples of “cancel culture.”

Teams of digital sleuths, calling themselves “Sedition Hunters,” also played a large role in identifying rioters who took part in the attack on the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. But the people they focused on generally appeared to be involved in criminal activity rather than constitutionally protected speech, and the information they collected was often handed over to the traditional authorities for further possible use.

In February, after news outlets identified employees of Elon Musk’s government-slashing agency, the Department of Governmental Efficiency, Ed Martin, then serving as the top federal prosecutor in Washington, promised Mr. Musk in a letter that his office would “pursue any and all legal action against anyone who impedes your work or threatens your people.”

While it was hard to determine how much the right-wing campaign had been coordinated in advance or had emerged from a grass-roots effort, those taking part it in have been celebrating the results.

“Make Liberals Homeless Again! Take their jobs,” Enrique Tarrio, the leader of the Proud Boys who was pardoned for his role in Jan. 6, wrote on X on Thursday.

“Every leftist you get fired for celebrating someone being murdered, is another business who has a chance to hire a quality human being to replace them,” Brenden Dilley, a pro-Trump influencer known for sharing vulgar memes online, wrote on X on Friday morning. “This is how you take back your community.”

Ms. Loomer, a self-described free speech absolutist with 1.7 million followers on X, bragged in a text message to The New York Times that she had outed “dozens” of people who had celebrated the assassination. “I hope all of them lose their jobs,” she wrote. “Incitement of violence isn’t free speech.”

Those who have been targeted for their remarks about Mr. Kirk come from various walks of life — law firms, the media, military and government service.

Public schoolteachers in particular have come under fire for their statements, as school district officials and state leaders in at least eight states have said that they would investigate one or more teachers for inappropriate comments about Mr. Kirk. Investigations were announced in Florida, Texas, Oklahoma, Massachusetts, Virginia, Iowa, Rhode Island and South Carolina.

Anastasios Kamoutsas, the commissioner of education in Florida, said in a memo to state superintendents on Thursday that some teachers had made “despicable comments” about Mr. Kirk’s killing and that he intended to investigate every teacher who posted vile, inappropriate messages.

“If an investigation determines that these teachers should not be in a classroom based on their behavior, the commissioner will use all of his power to hold these educators responsible up to and including revoking their educator certificate,” Nathalia Medina, press secretary for the Florida Department of Education, said in an email.

In Oklahoma, Superintendent Ryan Walters similarly promised to revoke the teacher’s license of any instructors who “glorify this disgusting act of violence.”

At least one teacher was under investigation, Mr. Walters said. He also encouraged parents to use an online reporting system to document anything that could endanger their child’s learning environment.

Eileen Sullivan and Michael Crowley contributed reporting.