Foreign influencers are doing their best to spin the Charlie Kirk assassination

"We have bots from Russia, China all over the world that are trying to instill misinformation and encourage violence,"

""I wish it were the Russians," he said. "It's not the Russians, it's us.""

"Those influencers are absolutely talking about the Kirk assassination,"

Utah Gov. Spencer Cox warned that bots from Russia and China are spreading misinformation and encouraging violence after the Charlie Kirk shooting. Darren Linvill, co-director of the Media Forensics Hub at Clemson University, said foreign disinformation activity exists around the shooting but has limited reach compared with domestic content. Foreign-paid influencers and state-run outlets have posted spins on the assassination, but those posts often underperformed: Chay Bowes of RT received about 46,000 views on a six-minute video, while conservative influencer Benny Johnson exceeded 780,000 views on a separate video. At least one Russian automated bot network pushed incendiary false claims and failed to gain traction, and Linvill summarized that the most toxic discourse is primarily home-grown.

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