As some on the internet celebrate a CEO's murder, content moderators are at a crossroads

UPDATE: Dec. 9, 2024, 3:00 p.m. EDT A 26-year-old man named Luigi Mangione was arrested on gun charges at a Pennsylvania McDonald's on Monday morning and is being questioned about the murder of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson. Mangione was allegedly in possession of a manifesto targeting healthcare companies, according to the New York Times.

Following the killing of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson on Wednesday, the internet erupted with jokes, memes, and, later, thirst posts for the insurance magnate's shooter. The assassination was an event that could, for many, signal the start of a more critical look at corporations, how the people leading them treat the public, and how the public responds to those executives' choices.

Or it was just a perfect opportunity to laugh in the face of a bleak political and economic reality. The internet is as the internet does.

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But the online fete has stirred even more debate behind the scenes: In the age of re-contested free speech, where does content moderation (and platforms' anti-violence policies) fit into the class conversation?

Nowhere has that been more documented than on Reddit. According to a 404Media report, the platform has removed dozens of posts about the CEO's death, tracked by a platform subbreddit known as r/undelete which grabs content that reaches the top 100 most popular on the site before being deleted. Many of the posts, the publication found, had thousands of upvotes and even more still exist on industry related subs like r/nursing and r/medicine. Subbredit moderators are struggling to curb the plethora of posts, which they say will inevitably be removed by Reddit for violating anti violence policies, if not first removed by moderators for violation of "no politics" and "no death" rules.

There isn't resounding agreement on whether posts like this should be removed, however. In posts and statements to 404Media, users and moderators alike have argued that discussion of the assassination do not violate Reddit's content policies given that it is a "newsworthy" event covered by reputable outlets.

Meanwhile, sites like Facebook and X (formerly Twitter) have struggled to spot and remove online reactions, as well. An official Facebook post from UnitedHealthcare announcing Thompson's death was the subject of online fodder once users realized the healthcare giant's post of condolence was being "ratio'd" by laughing reactions. As of Dec. 5, the post had more than 31,000 "haha" responses, compared to just 1,900 "sad" reacts. United Healthcare later locked down its post, as well as similar ones on LinkedIn, from further commenting.

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Some have equated the resoundingly positive reaction online to the digital celebration of controversial Secretary of State Henry Kissinger's death in Nov. 2023 — a similarly meme-filled event that even got its own sexually-charged copypasta.

But while thousands interacted with and posted their United Healthcare memes, others online warned that they might want to cool their partying — or at least be prepared to deal with the possible repercussions. In a TikTok captioned "hot tips from a former lawyer" by account @fivefourpod, users amplified the right to remain silent: "If a person of government shows up at your door asking about a post on this app or another app... They're going to make it seem like you need to explain yourself. Shhhh. Do not talk to the government person."