"At his Friday morning press conference on the killing of Charlie Kirk, Utah Gov. Spencer Cox made an emotional digression about the horrific footage of Kirk being shot. "Social media is a cancer on our society," the Republican told reporters. "We have not evolved in a way that we are capable of processing those types of violent imagery. It is not good for us. It is not good to consume.""
"He was talking about Kirk, but also about the Aug. 22 death of Iryna Zarutska, whose killing on a light rail train in Charlotte, North Carolina, was captured by surveillance cameras. That footage, which was released on Sept. 5, went megaviral on the right-wing internet last weekend-and set the stage for the reaction to Kirk's death in more ways than one."
"For Cox, as for many people online, the inescapable videos of the two killings, one after another, represented the lawless and corrosive nature of social media, serving up gruesome snuff films in the limitless pursuit of views. But the footage of Zarutska's death also prompted fury among right-wing influencers and politicians against liberals, Democrats, and the media-a fury that Kirk's assassination quickly intensified."
Utah Governor Spencer Cox described social media as a cancer while reacting to graphic footage of Charlie Kirk's killing and other violent videos. Surveillance footage captured the Aug. 22 killing of Iryna Zarutska on a Charlotte light rail train; that footage was released Sept. 5 and went megaviral across right-wing online networks. The viral footage spurred fury among right-wing influencers and politicians, who targeted liberals, Democrats, and the media, and that backlash intensified after Kirk's assassination. Elon Musk amplified the partisan narrative by asserting that "the Left is the party of murder" and sharing provocative AI-generated images. Surveillance video appears to show 34-year-old Decarlos Brown Jr. rising from his seat on a Charlotte light rail train to stab an unsuspecting Zarutska in the neck with a pocketknife.
Read at Slate Magazine
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