Two Assassinations, One Outrage Economy

What the algorithm amplifies is not what society needs

Political violence is not a trending topic; it is a human catastrophe. On September 10, 2025, conservative activist Charlie Kirk was shot and killed while speaking at Utah Valley University in Orem, Utah. Officials described the killing as a political assassination. National outlets ran wall-to-wall updates, clips spread across platforms within minutes, and leaders across the spectrum condemned the attack.

This summer, Minnesota endured a night of terror that targeted elected officials. In the early hours of June 14, Rep. Melissa Hortman and her husband, Mark, were killed at their home, and State Sen. John Hoffman and his wife, Yvette, were shot and wounded in a related attack. Federal prosecutors later charged Vance Boelter, describing targeted political assassinations. Minnesota outlets covered each procedural turn, and national media reported the major breaks, but the story rarely dominated the national feed beyond the initial burst.

Our feeds fill with extremes: people grieving Kirk’s assassination and others celebrating the violence as if it were vigilante justice. We do not need another sermon about whose ethics are superior. That performance helps fuel the enragement-equals-engagement machine. The useful move is to examine the media ecosystem we live in and adjust how we discuss events within it.

Both episodes deserve the same moral clarity: universal condemnation of violence and care for the people harmed. If the attention felt unequal, that is not proof that one life mattered more; it reflects what our information system rewards. The economy of online attention is calibrated to elevate what enrages us, not what most needs sober focus. Research shows that engagement-based ranking tends to amplify emotional, out-group-hostile content. Anger travels faster, and we are nudged to post more of it when platforms reward outrage with clicks and shares.

What happened, and how attention moved

Start with the timelines. In Utah, a single, highly visible shooting struck a nationally known figure on a public stage, with thousands present and multiple cameras rolling. Video captured the moment and spread immediately. Newsrooms launched live updates within minutes. That combination of familiarity, clarity, and clip-ready visuals produces rapid amplification in today’s feeds.

As the algorithm continually retrains on every click and share, our feeds start pushing more clips of Kirk’s events, reminding us of every grievance if we disagreed with him. It is human to feel the urge to say his words came back to haunt him. What separates us from impulse is the choice to express that reaction with restraint and logic. Is that the behavior we want to model? Does it bridge the divide we keep discussing, or deepen it?

Free speech is our right, one Kirk championed, but words carry consequences. In a world where the digital square often stands in for the physical one, how we carry ourselves online matters. Not seeing others face to face does not make these interactions weightless; their permanence can make them longer-lasting. If we want a civil society, we speak with clarity, empathy, and care, especially when the stakes are life and death.

Minnesota’s case unfolded across homes and hours, involved multiple victims, and progressed through a manhunt, arrests, and layered state and federal charges. Those details are civically important, but they drip out over days and weeks. That cadence fits investigative timelines and court dockets better than it fits the viral cycle. Local and regional reporters sustained the story with rigor while national coverage surged at key moments, then receded.

These are structural dynamics, not moral judgments. In an outrage-optimized system, a shocking clip attached to a familiar national figure outcompetes a complex, multi-scene crime, even when the civic stakes are comparable. Attention follows the path of least narrative resistance.

“Enragement equals engagement”: the mechanism

“Enragement equals engagement” is shorthand for how platform incentives work. The more a post spikes anger or out-group hostility, the more it tends to be clicked, commented on, and boosted by ranking systems.

• Algorithmic ranking often amplifies angry, out-group-hostile political content compared with a simple chronological feed. When systems rank by expressed user preferences instead of raw engagement, that angry tilt can diminish.
• Attacking the political out-group tends to travel farther than neutral or in-group content.
• When we receive positive feedback for angry posts, we are more likely to post angry content later, creating a feedback loop that ratchets up tone across networks.
• Design choices matter. Past weighting of certain reactions over simple likes has shown how interfaces can tilt the table toward provocation.

None of this means the algorithm made us do it. It means large systems are tuned to features of human psychology that favor hot emotion over cool proportion. When tragedy strikes, the difference between a clip that hits our outrage circuitry and a complex case that demands context can determine what the country sees, and for how long. We do not need to tally every headline to see the pattern. The real choice is what we decide to reward next.

What we can do next

Civil discourse does not survive on vibes. It survives on habits and rules. None of the steps below fix the problem alone, but each reduces the incentive to turn grief into a weapon.

As readers and sharers

• Pause before we post. If a headline spikes our pulse, give it sixty seconds. Ask whether sharing will add light or only heat.
• Verify across sources. Prefer official briefings, court filings, and reputable local and national outlets. Correct our own side when it strays.
• Do not boost graphic clips. Sensational video is the raw feedstock of rage virality. We can opt out.
• Humanize language. Condemn individual actors, not entire categories of people. Avoid labels that turn neighbors into enemies.

For newsrooms

• Balance the burst with the arc. Keep attention on victims, proceedings, and communities after the first spike, especially when there is no easy clip.
• Headline for clarity. Resist gratuitous outrage cues.
• Explain uncertainty. In the first 24 hours, be explicit about what is known, what is unconfirmed, and when you last updated.

For platforms

• Blend engagement with quality signals. Do not let click metrics alone determine reach for content about violence. Incorporate credibility and user-stated satisfaction.
• Increase transparency. Enable independent audits of ranking systems and publish high-level metrics about the amplification of incendiary content.
• De-weight rage proxies. Avoid designs that systematically reward anger.

For leaders

• Model de-escalation. Condemn violence quickly and specifically. Avoid casting blame on broad groups of citizens.
• Be consistent. Hold our own side to the same standards we demand of opponents. Consistency builds credibility.

A closing commitment

Honor every victim equally in our hearts. Refuse to let the feed decide whose life counted. Mourn Charlie Kirk. Mourn the Minnesotans. Ask more of the systems that allocate our attention and more of ourselves when we feel the tug to rage-share. Civil discourse will not survive if we keep rewarding what is most enraging. It can survive if we reward what is most informative and most human.