Utah gov. says the motive in Kirk shooting is not yet certain but the suspect was on the left

[spanone]

He has an agenda.

Utah governor says the motive in Kirk shooting is not yet certain but the suspect was on the left

WASHINGTON (AP) — Family and friends of the 22-year-old accused of fatally shooting conservative activist Charlie Kirk described his politics as veering left in recent years as he spent large amounts of time scrolling the “dark corners of the internet,” Utah Gov. Spencer Cox said Sunday.

Investigators were still piecing together information about the suspect, Tyler Robinson, and not yet ready to discuss a potential motive. But Cox noted that Robinson, who is not cooperating with law enforcement, disliked Kirk and may have been “radicalized” online.

Kirk founded Turning Point USA to bring more young, conservative evangelical Christians into politics as effective activists, and he was a confidant of President Donald Trump, leading to a flood of tributes that included a vigil Sunday night at the Kennedy Center in Washington. Kirk, a 31-year-old father of two, became prominent in part through his speaking tours, and he was shot Wednesday while speaking at Utah Valley University.

“There clearly was a leftist ideology,” Cox said on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” citing interviews with Robinson’s relatives and acquaintances. “Friends have confirmed that there was kind of that deep, dark internet, the Reddit culture, and these other dark places of the internet where this person was going deep.”

https://apnews.com/article/charlie-kirk-cox-robinson-assassination-aef9fe8dc82d218a36d078536717d95d

[agingdem]

1. poor guy...he prayed the shooter would be

black/brown/Democrat instead of "one of us"...thoughts and prayers, asshole..

to paraphrase Pogo "You have met the enemy and the enemy is you"...

[Lovie777]

2. WOW.......................

the lies conintue.

[rog]

14. He directly called out Reddit ... actually, there was a recent study on Reddit.

Near as I can tell, Reddit leans slightly left politically, with approx 58% left leaning among users and approx 62% left leaning among moderators. Last time I checked, that pretty much mirrors the US population in many polls. Per the end of the excerpt below, "... biased content moderation is not limited to any one side."

So although Reddit started as a bastion of libertarianism, it's pretty far from being either a liberal or MAGA 'cesspool', and definitely not part of the so-called 'Dark Web®'.

These people are just flapping their gums. They don't have any interest in learning about any of this, and apparently the media doesn't either. They're just going to say this guy was radical left and use BS to prove it.

Interview with the study author at umich.
https://michiganross.umich.edu/news/new-study-reddit-explores-how-political-bias-content-moderation-feeds-echo-chambers

And here's a link to the study itself ... it's pretty technical, but worth a look.

On a scale from 0-100, where 0 represents the staunchest Republican and 100 represents the staunchest Democrat, the average user in our data is a 58, and the average moderator is a 62. However, looking at these averages masks the fact that Reddit is incredibly diverse in its countless subreddit communities. Suffice it to say that biased content moderation is not limited to any one side.

[JCMach1]

17. Reddit is also pretty heavily moderated at several levels

And are quick to suspend and ban.

[mvd]

19. Agreed

I go there sometimes because of the diverse subreddits, and they often don’t let moderation ease up despite the number of topics.

[rog]

25. That appears to be mostly true. I only do a couple of gardening ...

... subreddits. Every once in a while ... even in something like gardening ... a disruptor shows up. Unless they're super obnoxious it seems the strategy is pretty much to ignore them, and they flame out before too long. There may be other subs that are less forgiving, but I don't know. I'm not doing any political stuff on Reddit.

The idea of moderation was addressed pretty heavily in the study, but it's sort of heavy reading if you want to check it out. They determined that the mods were slightly more left-leaning than the membership. The study was interesting in that they were able to access the posts that had been deleted by the mods and factored that into the data. The gist of the study seemed to be that user volunteer moderation skews the political orientation slightly to the left. Fine with me!

I do very little social media (no FB, no IG, no TikTok, no X, no Bluesky, no etc, etc) but Reddit seems to be a pretty good resource for the things that interest me, like growing hot peppers. Definitely not the Dark Web®, though!

[JCMach1]

35. Reddit skews younger so the slight left lean is not surprising

There are definite conservative spots in Reddit though. Reddit is way more moderates and relatively well-moderated than say, Facebook, X, Bluesky, Youtube, etc.

[Emile]

3. The killer was raised in a right-wing republican

family that took family pictures all holding guns.

This governor is spinning like a top.

[W_HAMILTON]

26. Yep. And it sure would be pretty damn simple to ask the father and mother what the political leanings of their son were.

Because they either admit he's a MAGA Republican like them or they have to admit that he's some """trans-loving leftist""" like Patel and Cox were trying to paint the shooter as before they even know who he was.

[travelingthrulife]

36. Also, wasn't it he who said the family and friends were saying just the opposite?

That everyone was deeply MAGA. Wasn't that just a day or two ago?

[Iris]

4. Why does ent he just shit up talking until all of the information comes to light

This is turning out to be a very layered and complicated situation and I know that's hard for the simple folk, but DAMN, stop trying to narrate this tragic situation.

[eppur_se_muova]

5. Those dark corners of the Internet are 100% RWNJ Republicans and their fellow-travelers. nt

[sboatcar]

6. I seriously doubt he was on the left

Raised in a very conservative mormon household, steeped in guns, probably a bit antisocial. Spent entirely too much time on 4chan and kiwifarms, got sucked into groyper meme culture, and decided to kill Charlie Kirk 'for the lulz' and now he'll be seen as a hero to those communities forever.

[Renew Deal]

7. They are mixing up left-right politics with internet insanity

The internet is not clearly on the political spectrum. It’s its own thing. Lazy thinkers like Cox think that anything that is not clearly right wing is left wing, but it’s not.

[Johonny]

8. To be fair, Reagan, Eisenhower, Nixon, Bush

Cheney, ... are all on the left of the Republican party these days. It doesn't take much to be "on the left", when the right is literally at using the military to attack its own cities and building concentration camps.

[Renew Deal]

10. That's correct

These guys are so extreme that a garden variety internet borne gun nut is to their left.

[karynnj]

9. Even if he had moved to the left, the gun culture of his family is a factor

I wonder if the governor is internally having difficulty accepting that the killer was Utah born and raised from a 'good" MAGA family. Remember his early comment of hoping the gun man was not "one of us".

[exboyfil]

11. I think videogames had more influence on his idealogy

than the left.

No, I am not advocating censoring videogames.

[RedWhiteBlueIsRacist]

12. No Guv, Robinson was dancing with the girl (maga-ism) that brought him to the dance.

[still-prayin4rain]

13. So like, corporations should pay taxes, universal healthcare, protecting the environment? What "leftist ideology"??

Also, Reddit is not some dark corner of the internet.

[rog]

15. Absolutely! You may be interested in my post above ...

... re: a recent study on Reddit politics at umich. (Reply #14)

[JCMach1]

16. Reddit, 😂... FFS there are almost as many

RW forums on Reddit as Left.

MOST are heavily moderated at the corporate level and by forum moderators.

These people investigating are clowns of the highest order. Lucky they even caught the alleged perp...

[still-prayin4rain]

18. We don't know why he did it, but we can confirm it is entirely the fault of the entirety of "the left."

[mvd]

20. That governor sure has changed his tune

Not surprised at all. It’s the Dump party.

[bluestarone]

21. Gosh, they want him NOT to be one of THEM in the worst way!

Too bad they are WRONG!! He is one of THEM!!!

[Quiet Em]

22. Governor Cox is very ignorant and has created his "leftist ideology" theory on

1. Tyler Robinson didn't like Charlie Kirk
2. One of the bullets was engraved with "hey fascist, catch this"
3. Tyler's friend may be someone who is considering transitioning
4. Governor Cox thinks Reddit is the dark web

It's should be interesting to see how they attempt to tie this together Tuesday when Tyler is charged.

[Dave says]

23. "deep, dark internet, the Reddit culture, and these other dark places on the internet"

Deep, dark places and Reddit culture does not point to leftist ideology. You have to be really slow to agree with Cox on that. But, then, Maga are ... ummm ... desperate to cling to anything that makes the killer one of "them" instead of Maga.

[Wiz Imp]

24. He seems confused. (Not really - he's just a liar)

“Friends have confirmed that there was kind of that deep, dark internet, the Reddit culture, and these other dark places of the internet where this person was going deep.”

The real "deep, dark" places of the internet are totally dominated by ultra, far right extremists.

[RANDYWILDMAN]

27. the republican pretzel problem

is getting worse tying themselves in knots trying to prove they are not to blame for the bad stuff and trying to take credit for good stuff, they voted against but passed anyways

[Ocelot II]

28. What is considered "leftist" by a Utah Mormon Republican is probably anything less extremely right-wing

than Charlie Kirk himself. But internet gamer "politics" isn't definably left-right - it's just more or less nihilistic.

[Takket]

29. This dude could have MAGA tattooed on his ass and we'll be told he's "on the left"

Can’t trust anything a rethug ever says.

[Nixie]

30. He was indoctrinated and raised in a republican gun culture.

He used a gun to kill someone based on that history and access to guns.

He had an online presence in the Nick Fuentes groyper far right hater club. Looks like his “roommate” shared his online gamer presence that tipped to extremism.

But all these brainwashers can come up with is some dumb ass commentary about “trans”, who wasn’t the shooter anyway, and a semester in a red state university. Such idiocy. How can they stand it. Why do we have to endure these idiots.

[Bristlecone]

31. "I know this because the president calls me 8 times a day to make sure I say it"

This is 100% fabricated. I would not doubt that TSF called the family, and promised not to seek the death penalty if they relayed the same message.

[MineralMan]

32. And we believe him? Why?

I believe nothing without being shown the evidence.

[spanone]

34. Don't believe him for a second, that's why this was posted.

He has an agenda.

[keep_left]

33. No, he was not. Cox and others are slaving like stevedores...

...trying to spin a phony story because the reality is so damning: the MAGA movement is in an ongoing civil war with Nick Fuentes and his far-right "Groypers".

There was a little-noticed post by David Shuster on X about this the other day (9/12).

https://democraticunderground.com/100220642543#post4

According to Utah officials + police interviews with his family, Tyler Robinson hated Charlie Kirk because Kirk wasn't conservative enough. (Robinson reportedly admired Nick Fuentes). GOPer's now scrubbing X posts about dems faster than DOJ erases Trump name in Epstein files.

Link to tweet

https://democraticunderground.com/100220641518#post21