The assassination of Charlie Kirk is widening the political divide in America—and some people who have made critical remarks about the conservative icon are finding their personal information being posted online, opening them up to harassment and threats.
One site, called “Expose Charlie’s Murderers,” has been taken offline after posting the names of 41 people that it claimed were “supporting political violence online.” The site reportedly said it was working on a backlog of over 20,000 submissions before it was taken down.
People named on the site were accompanied by screenshots of their alleged comments, which ranged from “he got what he deserved” to criticism of Kirk that also denounced violence, according to Reuters.
While the site claimed it was not a doxxing site (one that exposes private or identifying information about a person), a message on its front page Saturday read: “This website will soon be converted into a searchable database of all 30,000 submissions, filterable by general location and job industry. This is a permanent and continuously updating archive of Radical activists calling for violence.”
The domain was registered anonymously. And while the site was taken down by its host, sites of this type have a history of reappearing, hosted by overseas companies or private servers.
One user, a Canadian influencer whose name was the first listed on the now-removed site, posted a video on X describing the experience, saying she had never “celebrated” Kirk’s death. Because the site accused her of doing so, though, she has received a flood of intimidating notes from people saying they know her address and threatening sexual assault and death.
“It’s made the last 48 hours of my life a living hell,” said Rachel Gilmore. “Every single person who has ever disliked me is using this as a chance to get their pound of flesh.”
Government officials have not doxxed critics of Kirk since his murder, but some have posted messages that could be interpreted as supporting consequences for those who have posted criticisms.
Rep. Clay Higgins (R-LA), for instance, wrote: “I’m going to use Congressional authority and every influence with Big Tech platforms to mandate immediate ban for life of every post or commenter that belittled the assassination of Charlie Kirk. If they ran their mouth with their smartass hatred celebrating the heinous murder of that beautiful young man who dedicated his whole life to delivering respectful conservative truth into the hearts of liberal enclave universities, armed only with a Bible and a microphone and a Constitution … those profiles must come down.”
Meanwhile, another user on X is keeping a running list of people who have lost their jobs after comments about the shooting. As of September 11, when it was last updated, the list had 30 names, with several more reported since then, including educators and employees of private companies.
While the Supreme Court, in 1987, ruled that comments by government employees about acts of violence were constitutionally protected—even when made in poor taste—those protections do not extend to employees of private companies. And while posting thoughts, positive or negative, used to be a relatively harmless thing to do, the polarization of today’s society can turn any comment into a potentially dangerous situation—in which personal details are spread far and wide and cyberbullying (or worse) becomes relentless.
X, Reddit, Meta, and other online centers of communication all have anti-doxxing policies, but with the tsunami of posts happening in the wake of Kirk’s death, it’s hard for even Big Tech companies to stay on top of all of the threats.
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