LAS VEGAS (KLAS) — As response to conservative activist Charlie Kirk’s assassination pours in from all corners of the nation, politics, media, and – after all – the web, an instance of a collection of viral social media posts originating in Las Vegas has disrupted the profession of a businessman in his 70s and gives a cautionary story of the perils of social media.
The person, 71, and of some stature within the native world of actual property, has since been faraway from the board of administrators of knowledgeable affiliation, the 8 Information Now Investigators have discovered.
His apology Thursday morning, wherein he mentioned, “Yesterday I posted a very incendiary comment about the assignation [sic] of Charlie Kirk. I humbly seek forgivenss for all whom I’m offended,” got here after a collection of publish and responses the evening earlier than wherein it seems he known as Kirk an “evil POS” and “a disgrace and disgusting individual.”
One other of his obvious posts reads, “Live by the sword, die by the sword. No thoughts, no prayers for this POS.” The person, whose many posts seeming to endorse Kirk’s premature demise, refused an in-person dialog with the 8 Information Now Investigators on Thursday.
His account seems to have been flooded with robust, detrimental reactions.
“You’re clearly a sick individual,” one responder mentioned. “Hopefully, your employer will take the right steps and fire your ass.”
His employer, an actual property agency, didn’t reply to the 8 Information Now Investigators’ electronic mail request for info and remark. Nonetheless, the skilled board of administrators to which the person was not too long ago elected did.
“I’ve eliminated [the man] from any appointed positions … and the Board of Administrators is following the established course of to cope with these issues as shortly as the method permits. Moreover, [the man] has resigned his 2026 and 2027 … Board of Administrators positions.”
Kristi Piehl, a social media skilled and proprietor of the corporate Media Minefield, supplied her evaluation of the best way this on-line interplay devolved.
“Twenty years ago, the popular opinion, and the only opinion, would be that this is a horrible tragedy,” Piehl mentioned Thursday.
However Piehl, whose soon-to-be-released ebook Flip Your Script, mentioned it is apparent how time and social media have modified the nationwide dialogue.
“One of the unfortunate realities of social media is that many reasonable voices are afraid of saying anything,” Piehl mentioned. “So they have removed themselves from conversations, which leaves a vacuum and space for people who want to spew hate. And it opens the door for other people to pile on and to make something that we would never say to our friends.”
Piehl continued, talking concerning the realities of “today’s digital world.”
“So many of our crisis communication clients experience a crisis that started on social media,” she mentioned. “Our advice if you make a mistake is to take ownership, apologize, and stop engaging in online warfare with people that you’ve never met. And in this particular situation, many social media users don’t realize that their careers, their personal lives, their families can all be impacted by what they put out on the internet.”
Piehl additionally identified that regardless of a detrimental tenor that usually pervades social media, there’s loads of positivity.
The truth is that even in troublesome occasions, whether or not it is Charlie Kirk’s homicide or college shootings, there are lots of people placing a very pretty messages out on social media the place they’re highlighting the helpers and so they’re sharing love and so they’re providing methods to assist,” Piehl said. “And I encourage individuals to be a part of the inhabitants or a part of the mini motion that makes use of social media for positivity and for objective, and doesn’t have interaction in on-line hate or misinformation.”
On a extra world degree, President Donald Trump and Vice President JD Vance additionally weighed in on social media.
Trump, who was joined by Democrats in condemning the violence, mentioned he would award Kirk the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the very best civilian honor within the U.S., whereas Vice President JD Vance and his spouse, Usha, arrived Thursday afternoon in Salt Lake Metropolis to go to with Kirk’s household. Vance posted a remembrance on X chronicling their friendship, courting again to preliminary messages in 2017, by way of Vance’s Senate run and the 2024 election.
“So much of the success we’ve had in this administration traces directly to Charlie’s ability to organize and convene,” Vance wrote. “He didn’t just help us win in 2024; he helped us staff the entire government.”
Kirk’s casket was flown aboard Air Pressure Two from Utah to Phoenix, the place his nonprofit political youth group, Turning Level USA, relies. Trump informed reporters he plans to attend Kirk’s funeral. Particulars haven’t been introduced.
The Related Press contributed to this report.
