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Yesterday afternoon, after hearing that the conservative activist and influencer Charlie Kirk had been shot, I turned, as I often do when news breaks, to social media. I didn’t have to go looking for it: I was immediately confronted with a five-second video in which Kirk, coarsely pixelated and sitting under a tent, crumples to the ground, microphone still in hand, as a fountain of blood spills from the left side of his neck.

I saw the clip on X, as did millions of others, perhaps in part because of a feature that automatically plays videos for anyone scrolling through their feed. There are re

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