As news broke that conservative activist Charlie Kirk was shot at an event on a college campus last week, Hasan Piker’s Twitch chat was spiraling. Messages flooded onto the streamer’s channel. “Disavow quickly and vehemently for your own safety,” one chatter urged. “Pleeeeeeaaaase don’t do public debates anymore,” begged another.
Piker, one of the most prominent progressive creators online, was set to face Kirk in a live debate at Dartmouth University on September 25. Now, still on air with new details about the killing flowing in by the minute, Piker was openly weighing what it meant for his own work as well. “I go out to public settings like this all the time. So there’s a level of closeness in that regard because of the nature of what I do,” Piker told his viewers. “I have a policy of not living in fear, but we’ll see. I might have to reconfigure certain things.”
The killing of Kirk has jolted the political influencer world, forcing creators across the political spectrum to rethink the ways they interact with their fans and audiences. For years, these creators have received threats, both vague and dangerously targeted, but last week’s shooting has turned a concern that may have seemed abstract into a concrete possibility. Now, some creators are taking new security measures and paying closer attention to the provocative comments and messages they frequently receive. But even as they fortify their personal lives, many of these influencers are pushing harder than ever creating political content, unwilling to slow down in an industry where constant output is the name of the game.
One Democratic creator with a large following who frequently attended campaign rallies for President Donald Trump last year says they are working on setting up security systems at their and their parents’ homes. The creator, who spoke to WIRED under the condition of anonymity to protect their and their family’s safety, cited an uptick in threatening messages since Kirk’s death as their rationale.
They shared an email that read, “YOU F*CKING CANNIBAL PIECE OF S*IT WE WILL MEET SOON!!!” as one that pushed them over the edge. “We probably can't do any events if we don't have someone at least watching our [the creator and their camera operator’s] shoulder,” the creator says.
The potential safety risks are real, and standard security from local law enforcement might not be enough to protect creators at public events. During a press conference hours after the shooting last week, Utah Valley University police chief Jeff Long talked about what other security measures his team, which coordinated with Kirk’s detail, could have undertaken.
“You try to get your bases covered and unfortunately today we didn't and because of that we had this tragic incident,” Long said.
Chris Falkenberg, a former Secret Service agent and founder of Insite Risk Management, says this is a systemic problem.
“We do not do a good job in security of anticipating new types of attacks or new types of victims. Therefore, most security efforts are in response to attacks that have already occurred and successful attackers,” says Falkenberg. “Successful assailants either find novel ways of attacking, or they find a new way of putting old wine in new bottles by attacking somebody else or attacking a different location.”