Incident Debrief︱Ripple Effects of the Charlie Kirk Assassination in theCanadian Information Ecosystem
On September 10, 2025, Charlie Kirk, prominent American right-wing activist and founder of Turning Point USA, was assassinated while at a public rally on the campus of Utah Valley University. His death resulted in an apparent surge of highly charged and polarized online conversations, disinformation and calls for political violence and retribution in the American but also in the Canadian information environment. Canadian commentators were targeted and Canadian politicians from across the political spectrum weighed in, warning about the dangers of political violence and the risks of escalating ideological conflict.
The Canadian Digital Media Research Network responded to this event with an incident notification, launching an investigation that produced eight incident updates. We conclude our investigation with this debrief, which highlights how the Charlie Kirk assassination provides critical insights on future instances of political violence that can help us better prevent, mitigate, prepare for, and respond to future events.
Incident Assessment
This minor information incident created a transnational information event reaching far outside the United States and deeply into the Canadian information environment. While the initial days and weeks following the assassination felt transformational for polarization, democratic discourse, and acceptability of violence and harassment, several months after the event we can fully assess its importance and impacts. This event highlights the permeability of the Canadian information environment to major U.S. political events, the polarizing and misinformation potential of events like these, and the opportunities these events create for foreign manipulation. The event generated widespread awareness, transforming Kirk from an online figure particularly known among the youth to a household name in Canada [IU6]. While engagement was widespread and polarized and conspiratorial narratives were widely visible online for several weeks after the event [IU2, IU5], the real-world consequences for Canadians have been limited.
The incident appears to have had four principal consequences on the Canadian information environment:
1. Widespread and polarized reactions
Nearly all Canadians were exposed to news of the event, with most exposure and discussions occurring on social media [IU6]. Canadian news outlets primarily provided informational updates, politicians showed limited engagement, while influencers played a greater role in shaping narratives and debates [IU2, IU5]. Divisions primarily emerged from reactions to Charlie Kirk’s death and disagreement over his legacy [IU2, IU4, IU5, IU6]. Extreme emotional reactions to the event were more visible online than offline, with the most common reactions among Canadians being sadness and sympathy for the family, shock, condemnation of violence, and concern about the future of our society [IU6].
2. Foreign and domestic influencer amplification of conspiratorial content
Polarized and conspiratorial narratives emerged primarily on X and rapidly permeated the Canadian information environment [IU5]. While Canadian influencers were not the initial drivers of these narratives, they amplified them, extending their domestic reach [IU2, IU5]. Russian state-affiliated media devoted disproportionate attention to the event relative to their typical North American coverage, advancing overtly politicized, conspiratorial, and emotionally charged content (consistent with a recurring pattern of exploiting Western crises to deepen division and institutional distrust) [IU1, IU8]. Notably, neither China nor India followed suit. While the conspiratorial narratives themselves were short-lived [IU2, a sizeable minority of Canadians reported awareness of or belief in them [IU6]. Despite this turbulent online environment, overall partisan polarization in Canada remained stable (though high) throughout 2025.
3. Heightened concern about political violence, despite broad condemnation
Most Canadians believe that the assassination of Charlie Kirk is reflective of a broader problem in society [IU3]. While political violence was widely condemned internationally and in Canada [IU4] and support for political violence remains very low overall [IU7], a significant share of Canadians believe that political violence is a serious problem in Canada (though a significantly smaller problem than in the U.S.) and anticipate that the problem will get worse in the coming years [IU3]. The event also amplified partisan misperceptions, with the prominent but largely unfounded claim that the left celebrated Kirk’s death reaching wide audiences online [IU5, IU6]. Such narratives matter because partisans who overestimate their opponents’ support for violence are themselves more likely to endorse it [IU7]. While support for political violence remains low overall, the event spotlighted a troubling generational divide: young Canadians aged 18–34 are significantly more likely to view violence as sometimes necessary for social change, a share that has grown since 2024 [IU3].
4. Perceptions of political violence trigger chilling effects on political expression and democratic participation
Debates surrounding public reactions to Charlie Kirk’s death, including condemnation of celebratory comments and high-pro- file professional sanctions such as the suspension of Jimmy Kimmel, raised important questions about the boundaries of political speech [IU2, IU5]. Canadians broadly agree that inciting political violence should carry consequences, including professional sanctions, legal action, or removal from social media, with somewhat lower support for penalizing speech that celebrates or justifies violence. A small majority (56%) are also willing to trade off some civil liberties so that governments can effectively address the threat of political violence [IU7]. At the same time, Canadians generally perceive that freedom of expression is under threat, even though a minority have personally experienced professional, legal, or social consequences for their political speech [IU7]. A high but stable proportion of Canadians do not feel comfortable posting their political opinion online [IU6]. Among those who do, roughly half think about the possibility of harassment or professional, legal, and social repercussions before expressing (or choosing not to express) their views [IU7]. More generally, concern about political violence constrains democratic engagement, with half of Canadians saying they will avoid some political activities, such as putting up political signs, posting opinions online, or attending protests, because of such concern [IU3].
Overall, this incident was classified as minor because, although most Canadians heard about it and it led to misinformation and polarized online debates, including content amplified by Russian state-affiliated actors, these dynamics were relatively short-lived and had limited negative offline consequences.
Lessons Learned
The Charlie Kirk assassination provides critical insights on future instances of political violence that can help us better prevent, mitigate, prepare for, and respond to future events. Our investigation reveals 5 key lessons for consideration.
1. Online sentiments provide a skewed and polarized misrepresentation of offline sentiments.
As is routinely the case, the online conversation provides a highly distorted view into population-level attitudes. This divide was particularly noticeable during the fallout from the assassination in Canada where online animus, blame, and division was rampant and where politician and news voices were minimal compared to the massive reach of influencers. Meanwhile, the most prevalent offline emotional reactions were sadness/grief and indifference. Both anger and happiness were far more ob- served online than personally experienced. The infrastructure of online spaces prioritizes hostile, emotive, and contentious framings of events far above reserved and moderate ones.
2. Widespread condemnation of political violence does not eliminate its chilling effects on democratic participation.
The Charlie Kirk assassination prompted near-universal condemnation across platforms and borders, with content creators globally expressing predominantly critical reactions. Yet despite this shared moral consensus, Canadians and Americans alike viewed the assassination as representative of a broader societal problem rather than an isolated event, fears of violence remain elevated, and majorities in both countries expect the problem to worsen. Concerningly, people tend to overestimate the extent to which their political opponents support violence and these dynamics appear to be chilling democratic participation. While consensus against violence is encouraging, the gap between actual attitudes and perceived threats risks eroding the civic engagement that healthy democracies depend on.
3. Young people are critical outliers in their online exposure and attitudes toward political violence, warranting focused attention.
Young Canadians stood out as the demographic most familiar with Charlie Kirk prior to his assassination, and they were significantly more likely than older generations to encounter news of his death through social media rather than traditional broadcast media. This heightened online exposure matters because social media environments tend to amplify polarizing figures and emotionally charged narratives. More concerning, young Canadians are also more likely than older age groups to view political violence as sometimes necessary for social change and this belief appears to be growing over time. While the majority of young people still reject that violence, the combination of greater exposure to polarized online content and rising openness to violence as a political tool represents a warning sign. These patterns underscore the need for interventions that address both the information environments young people inhabit and the validity of democratic channels.
4. Major polarizing events follow a brief but intense conversation pattern that includes speculation, blame and misinformation.
Online discourse following the Kirk assassination surged rapidly across platforms and borders before subsiding within roughly two weeks. The narrative arc followed a recognizable pattern: initial waves of conspiracy theories, grief, and speculative sense-making around the shooter’s identity gave way to polarized ideological contestation, with claims about celebrations of Kirk’s death generating the sharpest divisions. Discussion topics ranged from the shooter’s motives and identity to tangential debates about free speech, media responses, and broader cultural grievances. Notably, the most polarizing claims were predominantly refuted rather than supported by users. This pattern mirrors research on mass shootings and crisis events, which documents rapid attention spikes driven by speculation and blame that collapse once initial claims are challenged or the news cycle moves on. For those monitoring information ecosystems, the predictability of these cycles presents both a challenge (misinformation spreads fastest in the early, fact-poor window) and an opportunity to prepare evidence-based responses before narratives calcify.
5. Russia’s efforts to exploit events of political instability continues and exceed that of other countries.
Russian state-affiliated media and creators demonstrated disproportionate interest in the Kirk assassination compared to other countries with documented foreign influence operations. Russian sources surged well above their already elevated baseline of attention to North American politics, promoting highly politicized and conspiratorial narratives. These tactics align with documented Russian information warfare playbooks: rapid saturation of the information space before facts are established, deployment of conflicting storylines to fragment understanding, and selective amplification of content with the greatest potential to deepen polarization. This pattern is not isolated with similar tactics deployed during moments of Western political instability, from the Trump assassination attempt to high-profile diplomatic confrontations. Recognizing these predictable responses to future crises is essential for building information resilience.
For media inquiries, please contact Isabelle Corriveau at isabelle.corriveau2@mcgill.ca.