Neighbor turned on neighbor after Charlie Kirk's killing. Is the divide here to stay?

People walk in front of a memorial for slain conservative commentator Charlie Kirk, at Utah Valley University in Orem, Utah, on September 29, 2025. Jim Urquhart/Reuters hide caption

A week into fall semester at Utah Valley University in Orem, Utah, the campus's grassy, terraced courtyard bakes under the heat of full late August sunlight. The sound of trickling water from a fountain that meanders through the space beckons students to stop, chat and unwind. But Collin Grannis, who graduated over the summer, said the space hasn't had much activity since Charlie Kirk was assassinated there last year.

"It used to be very lively. People doing homework, people taking their food to eat outside, people to hang out. I remember people taking naps on the grass, like right in that area," Grannis recalled. "And it's been fully cleared out because people have that association with it."

The quiet of the courtyard belies the violence that took place in it a year ago, and the deepened social rupture that followed. The hard-right activist was killed in front of an audience of thousands while he was debating a student with progressive political views. The co-founder and then-leader of Turning Point USA, Kirk was arguably the most influential conservative youth movement leader in a generation – and his death set off an unprecedented frenzy of intimidation, harassment and threats that seemingly reached into every corner of the country.

People walk near the site where conservative commentator Charlie Kirk was killed on the campus of Utah Valley University in Orem, Utah on Aug. 28, 2026. Jim Urquhart for NPR hide caption

As the country has seen an accelerated erosion of political norms over the last decade, violence and personal attacks have become a persistent dynamic. A wide array of civic actors - from elected officials and judges, to teachers and librarians – have found themselves at the receiving end of abuse and intimidation over political differences and culture war rifts. Despite this, everyday Americans could largely avoid the mob's ire as long as they weren't singled out by high-profile social media accounts like LibsOfTikTok. But Kirk's death changed this, according to several security experts who help prevent and mitigate online abuse.

"After Charlie [Kirk was assassinated]. … you didn't need to be [targeted by] one of the big [social media] accounts, obviously, for anyone to find you," said Shauna Dillavou, CEO of Brightlines, a doxing prevention service. "Your neighbor found you or your friends found you. A comment in a closed group chat that would get screenshotted and passed up the chain. And that was the big shift: the neighbor-on-neighbor, trusted circle, inner sanctum violence."

Doxing, the public release of someone's personal identifying information without their consent, is a tool that has been used by the political right and left. Dillavou said that in the U.S., its use has evolved and shifted – first largely seen within gaming subculture, then among violent extremist groups and actors, and later deployed by high-reach social media accounts. Kirk's death, Dillavou and other experts said, removed the final guardrails – democratizing the practice of doxing at a speed and scale they never had imagined.