Rep. Clay Higgins (R-La.) on Thursday stated he’ll search to have social media firms place lifetime bans on customers who celebrated the assassination of Charlie Kirk, the conservative activist shot Wednesday whereas talking on the campus of Utah Valley College.
“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,” Higgins wrote in a put up on the social platform X.
“If they ran their mouth with their smarta– 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,” he added.
The Louisiana lawmaker stated he’ll foyer Large Tech to “have zero tolerance for violent political hate content material.”
Most social media firms have scaled again their efforts to police content material over the previous 12 months, although most preserve guidelines towards direct threats towards people.
Earlier this 12 months, Meta, proprietor of Fb and Instagram, relaxed its guidelines surrounding hate speech, dropping some protections for LGBTQ people particularly.
Their mannequin now follows Elon Musk’s social platform X, the place customers are requested to submit notes or corrections to posts which can be doubtlessly deceptive or lack context.
Kirk’s killing has spurred a surge of anger on the appropriate as authorities search to trace down the shooter. A few of Kirk’s critics have instructed his divisive rhetoric invited violence.
“He was constantly pushing this sort of hate speech aimed at certain groups,” Matthew Dowd, a political operative and contributor to MSNBC, stated on the community Wednesday. “And I at all times return to: Hateful ideas result in hateful phrases, which then result in hateful actions.”
Dowd was fired Thursday.
Higgins is just not the one lawmaker to make calls for on social media retailers within the wake of the taking pictures.
Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (R-Fla.) referred to as on X, Meta and TikTok to take away graphic movies of Kirk’s assassination from their platforms.
“He has a household, younger kids, and nobody needs to be pressured to relive this tragedy on-line,” Luna stated Wednesday night time on X.
Higgins stated he’ll go additional than social media bans in concentrating on those that expressed happiness about Kirk’s dying.
“I’m also going after their business licenses and permitting, their businesses will be blacklisted aggressively, they should be kicked from every school, and their drivers licenses should be revoked,” he added in his Thursday put up.
“I’m basically going to cancel with extreme prejudice these evil, sick animals who celebrated Charlie Kirk’s assassination. I’m starting that today. That is all.”
