Several people fired after clampdown on speech over Charlie Kirk shooting

Social media as megaphone, not living room

• Several comments stress that social platforms feel like small-group conversations but are actually public megaphones; employers, clients, and political opponents are always potentially watching.
• The Kirk shooting and subsequent firings are used as a reminder that “venting” online—especially about politics or death—can follow you into employment decisions.

Stepping away from political rabbit holes

• Some argue the event shows how social media outrage cycles radicalize people, including the shooter, and can drag ordinary users into dark, dehumanizing thinking.
• Others push back that completely tuning out current events is irresponsible if you care about democracy; suggestion is to “skim without going down the drain.”

Free speech vs. employment consequences

• Repeated clarification: the First Amendment restricts government, not private employers; most US workers are at‑will and can be fired for almost any non‑protected reason.
• Disagreement over whether it should be legal to fire people for political expression or gloating about a death, with some saying it’s normal reputational accountability and others seeing it as raw power and “cancel culture.”
• A side discussion contrasts US at‑will employment with stronger job protections and severance norms in parts of Europe.

Are firings justified for celebratory reactions?

• Many say healthcare workers, pilots, and teachers publicly cheering a political assassination demonstrate a lack of compassion and judgment incompatible with their roles.
• Others argue personal social media speech doesn’t automatically prove they’d mistreat patients or students, and that policing private reactions is overreach.

Debate about Kirk’s own rhetoric

• Heated disagreement over whether Kirk was a genuine free‑speech advocate or selectively punitive (e.g., “professor watchlists,” calls to deport a journalist, hardline border and policing rhetoric).
• Some emphasize his comments about gun deaths being a “price” of liberty and see his killing as the philosophy “boomeranging”; others insist he never advocated murder, only strong government force and gun rights.

Shooter’s ideology and partisan narratives

• Multiple, conflicting narratives appear: far‑left, far‑right “groyper,” furry/gamer culture, trans‑adjacent social circles; commenters note the early evidence is mixed and often unreliable.
• Some criticize right‑wing figures for instantly blaming the “radical left” before facts were clear; others highlight online bullet engravings and Discord activity as signs of very‑online extremism but concede motives remain unclear.