After Charlie Kirk’s killing, false claims flourish online — with help from U.S. adversaries

The assassination of conservative activist Charlie Kirk last week unleashed a wave of false information about the shooter’s identity and motivation by U.S. adversaries, including Russia, China and Iran.

Mentions of Charlie Kirk appeared more than 6,000 times across official media in China, Russia and Iran between Sept. 10-17, according to misinformation tracker NewsGuard.

These state-driven narratives contributed to the flood of false claims shared across social media following Kirk’s killing — and played directly into the hands of foreign adversaries, whose cyber operations seek to sow chaos and division among U.S. citizens, said McKenzie Sadeghi, NewsGuard’s editor of AI and foreign influence. 

Read more at Politico