CIt could have been a simple news item like so many others before it. On December 4, Brian Thompson, the boss of UnitedHealthcare, the main health insurer in the United States, was killed by several bullets in a New York street. A man, Luigi Mangione, was arrested five days later in Pennsylvania, before being charged with murder with the aggravating circumstance of “act of terrorism » on December 17. Two days later, he was transferred to New York – a journey carefully staged by the American authorities – where he appeared for the first time in federal justice.
This affair has taken an exceptional turn. Very quickly, even before his identity was revealed, Luigi Mangione was made a hero, and the murder he is suspected of having perpetrated – he denies being the author for the moment – was praised more than denounced. . Musical ballads on TikTok, playlists on Spotify, numerous jokes on memes. On Facebook, faced with the torrent of hateful responses, Brian Thompson's employer was forced to block reactions and comments under the publication announcing the CEO's death. Even on LinkedIn, a network not really known for its disrespect, many users reacted to the publication with laughing emojis.
Normally, the glorification of killers is limited to certain corners of the Internet, such as the 4chan and 8chan forums, notes Alex Goldenberg, an analyst at the Network Contagion Research Institute (NCRI), which tracks online threats. In a report published on December 5, however, he noted that, of the ten publications having received the most engagement on the social network X after the death of Brian Thompson, six “implicitly or explicitly express support for the murder or denigration of the victim”. “What is disturbing is that this is the majority opinion”he confides to New York Times.
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