By Theo Damaskos

On September 10th, 2025, Charlie Kirk, founder of Turning Point USA and political activist, was fatally shot while speaking at Utah Valley University. Although the story was reported by mainstream news outlets with accuracy and detail, for many people their first encounter with the event was not through a headline, but through the immediate spread of raw footage online. 

The unedited video of Kirk’s killing appeared within hours on TikTok, Instagram, X, and even YouTube. Within hours the plethora of videos had been seen by millions across the afore-mentioned platforms. With short-form content dominating social media, it is likely that many of these viewers never chose to watch it — the video simply appeared in their feeds. Thousands of re-uploads and retweets of the videos meant the clip reached both children and adults alike. When speaking to students at the RGS, it is very obvious that many students have seen graphic videos/images of the assassination on social media.

I’m sure many would agree that no child or teen should see footage that graphic and violent, so it poses the question of the current and future effects of social media on children. How will the next generation use social media, and more importantly how will it be regulated efficiently with more and more videos being posted each day? When Elon Musk took over Twitter, he cut the jobs of over 6,000 people with most of them responsible for moderation of the platform, making the content posted less thoroughly screened and checked. Therefore, how can we expect these growing social media companies to regulate the content we all consume without the staff to do so?  

With teens, around the world and at the RGS, social media is part of daily life with hundreds of videos consumed each day. Due to the sheer volume of unfiltered short form content appearing online, studies from Ofcom suggest that 3 in 5 teens see violent content online every month, showing that the safeguarding features of social media companies are largely ineffective. The Government’s response has been the Online Safety Act, making it the law to protect children from harmful content online, yet even with these restrictions in place it is clear that regulation is being overwhelmed by floods of content. 

Overall, the assassination of Charlie Kirk will be remembered for many reasons, but one memorable aspect will be how it showed the true power of the Internet. The fact that children were exposed to incredibly graphic videos within hours or minutes of the shooting highlights that even in light of the recent tightening of social media laws, children are still just as vulnerable as ever on the internet.