For years, the US tech giant has been criticized by conservatives for censoring its speeches on social media.
Now, social media platforms are facing pressure to do more to police content from many conservatives who have promoted the assassination of right-wing activist Charlie Kirk.
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Kirk’s murder at a lecture event in Utah last week unleashed a wave of negative commentary about activists online, ranging from criticism of his conservative views to pathological celebrations of his death.
Graphic footage of Kirk’s murder also bounced back across the platform, exposing millions of people to the gory statue of his final moments.
Hours after the murder, Republican Rep. Anna Paulina Luna urged Meta, X and Tiktok to defeat the video of Kirk’s death, warning that “at some point social media has begun to bleach humanity.”
Republican Utah Gov. Spencer Cox has blown up social media as “cancer” that played a “direct role” in any assassination or assassination attempt in recent years.
Louisiana representative Clay Higgins used his influence to promise that “it requires an immediate ban on commenters that have been disregarded by all posts or commenters.”
The controversy over the role of social media began to deepen after Monday’s chat platform mismatch confirmed that the suspected killer of Tyler Robinson, 22, appears to be held responsible for the crime in messages to other users.
On Wednesday, the Republican-led U.S. House of Representatives committee said it asked CEOs of Discord, Steam, Twitch and Reddit at an October hearing on “radicalising online forum users.”
The response to social media response to Kirk’s death shows a shift in political rights in part. This is an attack on the U.S. Capitol until recently, opposed alleged censorship of posts on topics from the COVID-19 pandemic to January 6, 2021.
The same Republican-led committee, which investigates discord and other platforms in 2023, held a hearing on “protecting speeches from government interference and social media bias.”
After pledging to cut back on misinformation and hateful content amid the fallout of Brexit and the political rise of Donald Trump, tech companies have embraced more lax moderation in recent years amid the political winds.
Formerly called Twitter, X expanded its fact-checking and content moderation programme after tech billionaire Elon Musk purchased the platform in 2022.
In January, days before Trump returned to the White House, Meta announced the end of a third-party fact-checking initiative, saying that previous content moderation efforts have “go too far.”
It is unclear what changes they may try to implement, even if the tone of Republicans’ freedom of speech and social media rhetoric changes.
Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson has called social media a political “toxin” after Kirk’s death, but he has yet to propose any relevant laws.
U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondy on Monday pledged to use the Department of Justice to crack down on “hate speech” that is not permitted under the US Constitution.
Bondi later returned to making it clear that authorities would focus on violent threats and instigation in the face of backlash from prominent conservatives.
Avid social media user Trump has provided a mixed signal on the issue, telling reporters this week that online platforms could be “cancer” but could be “great.”
The US Constitution provides broad protection for speeches under the First Amendment, but does not prohibit private companies from firing employees with online commentary.
On Wednesday, ABC announced that it had suspended the long-term show of television host Jimmy Kimmel “indefinitely” over a monologue that suggested that Kirk’s murder suspect was a follower of Trump’s Magazine movement.
Blurred the line between the private sector and the government’s efforts to police speeches, Kimmel’s suspension suggested that Federal Communications Commission’s chairman Brendan Kerr could face regulatory action on hosts’ remarks.
“The Attorney General himself commented on restricting hate speech online that actually elicited backlash from other conservatives, but other conservatives are fighting each other about this,” John Weebay, director of the AI-Media Strategies Lab at Northeastern University, told Al Jazeera.
“This is essentially different from previous controversies in this area. It appears contradictory to conservatives about the policy outcomes of terrible online events.”
Meta, X, and Reddit did not answer questions about whether to change Kirk’s posthumous content moderation policy.
These include removing violent or graphic content and removing content deemed to call for glory, incitement or violence.
“We are applying warning screens to graphic videos…centered on owing adults ageing around filming,” a Meta spokesperson said.
A Reddit spokesperson said the company “subjected its help to understand and adhere to the Reddit rules as well as the moderator’s code of conduct.”
Bluesky, Discord, YouTube, and Snap did not respond to requests for comment.
Dave Karpf, an associate professor of media and public relations at George Washington University, said his response to Kirk’s death has more to do with changing political landscapes under Trump than with principles about content moderation and speech.
“I have never seen a call for the pendulum to return towards content moderation. What they are looking for instead is a complete purge of the administration’s opponents,” Karpf told Al Jazeera.
“The fundamental difference is that both the government and the platform behaved as if they had to design a fundamentally fair and neutral process. The government today uses little for basic fairness or neutrality,” Karpf said.
“And the platform is trying to keep it a good side of the government today. It’s less likely that you’ll see a return to content moderation than you would see an appointment with government censorship.”
