I did not kill Charlie Kirk.
My colleagues at the Sun Sentinel did not kill Charlie Kirk. The mainstream media did not climb up onto that roof, en masse, with that gun, and kill Charlie Kirk.
What extraordinary sentences.
What an extraordinary time, that I would need to write them.
Pat Beall is an editorial writer and columnist for the Sun Sentinel, focusing mainly on Palm Beach County issues.
Who killed Charlie Kirk? One man. One gun. One choice.
What built up to killing Charlie Kirk, though, is probably right next to you. Worse, it is probably in your child’s backpack. Worse, you probably put it there. We all do.
It’s Meta, X, TikTok, Twitch, YouTube, Instagram.
It’s the rage in the social media machine.
Mean words alone are not poisoning our young men, devastating our daughters and destabilizing our democracy. People have been complaining about each other since the first scratch on the first stone tablet.
It’s the platform. It’s the algorithms. It’s the carefully calibrated digital addiction. It’s the impresario saying “Let’s you and him fight” while counting the greasy take from another day’s entertainment.
It’s the utter contempt that the barons of social media have for the rest of us.
“Fanatics who celebrate murder,” accused X owner Elon Musk of no one in particular and every Democrat in general, as videos of Charlie Kirk’s last seconds were being force fed to X users. Jumping from post to post, from X to Instagram and YouTube, there were millions of views and unknown numbers of people who unwittingly opened their feed to images of a blood-drenched stage.
Imagine a bright shining toy. Imagine that it rewires adolescent minds in such a way as to impede impulse control. Imagine that it exacerbates anorexia. Imagine that it facilitated genocide in Myanmar. Imagine it is a preferred tool for sex predators. Imagine that it provides a platform for 24/7 cyberbullying. Imagine it triggers teen depression and suicidal behavior.
Imagine that when an angry person posts that he is going to shoot someone, it is unrecognizable as a life-threatening crisis that could be stopped, because it is just one in a sea of violent threats.
Imagine that angry person has a rifle.
What would we do with such a bright toy? What would we do with its makers? Regulate them into sanity? Haul them before Congress?
Put them and their campaign gifts shoulder to shoulder with the president of the United States as he is sworn into office?
On the eve of the 2020 election, someone asked me if I thought there would be civil war. We were already at war. But it is not between red and blue. This war is between fact and fiction, and fiction is winning.
A democracy cannot exist without fact-based civic engagement. But there’s reason to believe billionaires fueling this endless, escalating war of words do not care. In 2018, Facebook changed its algorithm to downplay news and reward intense emotions. Internal documents showed it turbocharged outrage and violent content. Lies metastasized. Threats against people who deal in facts — scientists, doctors, university professors and, yes, reporters — are just an unfortunate byproduct.
Facebook corporate parent Meta could amplify truth and safety. It has the talent to revamp the code. It has the billions to pay for it. Instead, it eliminated fact checking in January. Six months later, Reuters revealed another of Meta’s unfortunate algorithmic byproducts: Its AI bots were having “sensual” talks with children.
How long are we going to put up with this? It’s past time for the people whose job is to protect us — Congress, governors, legislatures and state attorneys general, for starters — to demand guardrails, algorithmic integrity and real-world legal consequences.
And it must be government. It has to be compelled. Rage pays, and tech titans have already shown us they intend to go right on counting their profits.
Pat Beall is a Sun Sentinel columnist and editorial writer. Contact her at beall.news@gmail.com.
