When right-wing commentator and social media influencer Charlie Kirk was shot and killed on a university campus in September 2025, graphic videos of the assassination quickly spread online. Many of those images also landed in front of teenagers worldwide.

In early 2026, our team at DIY: Digital Safety, a Western University-based research project that builds resources to help navigate online risks, collaborated with the Canadian Centre for Child Protection. We surveyed more than 1,000 teens aged 13 to 18 across Canada about their exposure to real-world violence and gore online. Half of them had seen footage of Kirk’s death.

That statistic is one data point in a much larger pattern. Images of violent content — self-harm, suicide, fist fights, stabbings, mass shootings, animal abuse and sexual violence — used to remain in the internet’s dark corners. Now they circulate widely on social media, often right at young people’s fingertips.

The scale of the issue

Our survey found that Canadian teens are exposed to violence and gore at high rates: 85 per cent of participants had seen at least one type of this content online.

Most teens — 73 per cent — had seen videos of physical fights, 65 per cent had viewed police violence, 52 per cent saw someone injured or killed in a war and 50 per cent watched someone injured or killed in a car accident.

When asked about the worst video they saw online, the teens talked about a range of distressing content. Fist fights or beatings, including to the point........

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