Luigi Mangione has drawn lots of defenders on social media. That's a challenge for platforms when it comes to moderation — and for users.
www.businessinsider.com
Pro-Luigi Mangione content is filling up social platforms — and it's a challenge to moderate it
Katie Notopoulos, Senior Correspondent covering technology and culture
Luigi Mangione is accused of killing UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson. Some people are praising Mangione on social platforms — and it's causing a moderation headache. Pamela Smith/AP
- YouTube and Threads have taken down pro-Luigi Mangione posts they've said violate their policies.
- YouTube told Business Insider it forbids videos that glorify the murder of the UnitedHealthcare CEO.
- The different moderation approaches among platforms are leaving some users confused.
Diana "Ladidai" Umana, a content creator based in New York, has been closely following the news of
Luigi Mangione — posting her thoughts on various social media accounts.
Umana's posts are pro-Luigi (and some have unorthodox angles, like saying he wasn't the shooter, which authorities have charged him with). But she was surprised when her entire YouTube account was permanently removed for what YouTube told her were "severe or repeated violations" of its rules.
YouTube's
content moderation policies forbid "content praising or justifying violent acts carried out by violent extremist, criminal, or terrorist organizations."
"This means we remove content that glorifies or promotes the suspect in the murder of [UnitedHealthcare CEO] Brian Thompson, as well as content that trivializes his death," Jack Malon, a spokesperson for
YouTube, told Business Insider. "This enforcement began in the immediate aftermath of the incident, as part of our standard practice to address content related to violent tragedies."
Other social platforms have also taken down content related to Mangione.
Several subreddits devoted to him have been banned — like r/luigimangione2 — although there are still other active subreddits about him.
Reddit referred BI to its
content policy, which a spokesperson said "strictly prohibits any content that encourages, glorifies, or calls for violence."
TikTok also has a
policy against "promoting (including any praise, celebration, or sharing of manifestos) or providing material support" to violent extremists or individuals who cause serial or mass violence. People have complained that TikTok has removed
comments saying "Free Luigi" and some
videos about Mangione.
On Meta's Threads, people have said some of their posts about Mangione — like a post about his
astrological sign or a
video montage of him set to an Olivia Rodgigo song — were removed.
Meta has similar guidance, banning the "glorification" of dangerous organizations and individuals, which it defines as "legitimizing or defending the violent or hateful acts of a designated entity by claiming that those acts have a moral, political, logical or other justification that makes them acceptable or reasonable."
However, Meta recently updated what it calls its
dangerous organizations and individuals policy to allow for "more social and political discourse in certain instances including — peace agreements, elections, human rights related issues, news reporting and academic, neutral and condemning discussion — and to ensure users are not unduly penalized for sharing it."
A spokesperson for Meta pointed to this policy but declined to comment further.
Lol not @youtube deleting my whole channel cuz of my Luigi Mangione video 😭😭😭 You can’t tell me what’s happening regarding his case isn’t suspicious on all fronts 😵💫😵💫😵💫
www.threads.net
Pro-Lugi posts can be difficult to moderate
You might imagine how, when it comes to posts discussing Luigi Mangione, there are some gray areas between what's considered praise vs. discussion of social issues.
That's where the deluge of pro-Luigi posts from American users on social platforms gets a little weird.
Mangione's popularity among some people online is complicated, and I won't try to untangle it here (read
this or
this for some smart analysis). But you've probably already observed some of this online: There are a lot of people posting about Mangione and running afoul of content guidelines that they'd never usually run up against — rules designed for posts praising ISIS or Mexican drug cartels, for instance.
The result is some confusion and frustration among users.
Content moderation is an art, not a science, and there's a spectrum of differences between a statement like "Luigi was justified" and a meme about his looks or an ironic fan cam edit video.
Mangione has been charged with first-degree murder "in furtherance of terrorism," which may clarify things for platforms about whether to consider him as a single accused murderer or an alleged terrorist when it comes to content policy.
For now, it seems that a lot of social media users are surprised or confused by what is or isn't allowed when talking about Mangione on social media.
Update: January 5, 2025 — This story was updated with a comment from a Reddit spokesperson on the company's content policy.
