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Tyranthraxus posted...

Did I miss some really big news or something?

Miller wants a crackdown on 'the left' celebrating or not feeling it was a loss. A database is wanted to collect posts.

https://www.npr.org/2025/09/13/nx-s1-5538476/charlie-kirk-jobs-target-social-media-critics-resign
Over thirty people across the country have been fired, put on leave, investigated or faced calls to resign because of social media posts criticizing Charlie Kirk or expressing schadenfreude about the conservative influencer's assassination earlier this week, according to an analysis by NPR.

And more may be to come: some GOP lawmakers and officials are signaling their readiness to punish people for their speech. Conservative activists are collecting and publicizing social media posts and profiles that they say "celebrated" his death and are calling for them to lose their jobs.

"If they have their picture on their profile, even without a name, download the picture and reverse image search it," posted right-wing influencer Joey Mannarino. "Cross-reference it with their LinkedIn profile and find their place of employment. Call the place of employment, leave Google reviews."

Some Republican elected officials, along with right-wing influencers with large followings, including Laura Loomer and Libs of TikTok, the account run by activist Chaya Raichik, shared screenshots of offending posts and demanded action.

NPR has compiled a list from news reports of 33 people who have lost their jobs or are under investigations over their posts as of Friday. Most were public school teachers, with at least 21 educators in school districts across the country fired, put on administrative leave or placed under investigation by their employers. Firefighters, members of the military, a sports reporter, an employee of the Carolina Panthers and a city council official in Indiana have faced similar treatment or calls to resign.

Among the earliest and most prominent firings was MSNBC analyst Matthew Dowd, a former Republican political consultant to President George W. Bush. As news of a shooting at a Kirk event began to spread, Dowd made comments on live television that soon after attracted widespread backlash from conservatives.

In his appearance on MSNBC, Dowd first noted that no details were known at that time, then speculated whether it was a supporter who fired the gun in "celebration." Dowd went on to say Kirk was "constantly sort of pushing this sort of hate speech aimed at certain groups. And I always go back to, hateful thoughts lead to hateful words, which then lead to hateful actions."

He continued, "You can't stop with these sort of awful thoughts you have and then saying these awful words and not expect awful actions to take place. And that's the unfortunate environment we are in." After Dowd's comment, the host confirmed that Kirk was shot.

Some of Kirk's rhetoric was incendiary. He questioned the intellectual capabilities of women and black people, said that some gun deaths were worth it to have the Second Amendment, asserted the 1964 Civil Rights Act was a mistake, and cast immigrants and transgender people as threats.

Kirk's death was made public later that day, and Dowd's firing was made public that evening.
Dowd later apologized and clarified his comments. He wrote in a newsletter Friday that at the time he was speaking, he had not known that Kirk had been the target of the shooting or that he had been shot.

"The Right Wing media mob ginned up, went after me on a plethora of platforms, and MSNBC reacted to that mob," Dowd wrote.
The result of the social media frenzy over commentary about Kirk's death is that some people who "want to go down that path of debating the things that he stood for are essentially being silenced," said David Kaye, a law professor of law focusing on international human rights, the internet and free speech at the University of California, Irvine.

Kaye said first and foremost, political violence has no place in a democracy and people who celebrate such events are wrong to do so.
But he said at the same time, "I don't think that in a democracy we can clamp down on people engaging in debate over the legacy of somebody who was killed."

While online battles around social media posts have arisen in other murders or attempted murders of public figures in recent years,the campaign this time around appears more intense, in part due to a website, set up anonymously, called Expose Charlie's Murderers. The site corrals social media posts and the names, locations and employment of people deemed to have been "celebrating Charlie's death." No one behind the site responded to NPR's request for comment.

As of Friday morning, the site featured over 40 people, and the organizers claim that it "is being converted into a mass searchable database of over 20,000 entries." WIRED reported that some of the people featured on the homepage have received death threats.

"I'm so sorry President Trump, but the unemployment numbers next month in the jobs report are going to be very high," Loomer wrote on X on Thursday evening.
U.S. Sen. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., called for the immediate firing of multiple people in her state. "This person should be ashamed of her post. She should be removed from her position," Blackburn wrote in an X post about an assistant dean at Middle Tennessee State University.