Panicked search terms spike online after Trump rally shooting: ‘Civil War 2’
The day of and the day following the assassination attempt on former President Donald Trump saw major usage spikes on Google for search terms such as “Civil War 2” and “American Civil War.”
Google Analytics shows the search term “American Civil War” hit a 12-month high Saturday, the day Trump was shot at a rally in Butler, Pa.
The term “Secret Service” also achieved its highest spike in interest for the past five years by far Saturday.
The terms “long distance shooting” and “gun store near me” both saw significant interest booms, reaching new 12-month highs the day after the attack. “How do I move to Canada” also reached a new 12-month peak then.
Google Analytics measures overall interest in a given search term rather than each individual usage — meaning the top of the chart represents the most the term has ever been searched in a given time period (100 points) and the bottom represents the least (0 points).
The ghoulish “How do you miss” was trending on Twitter just moments after the attack, and “Civil War” quickly became the site’s most popular keyword.
The surge of interest in these terms highlights the extreme political stress Americans have been living under — a factor some experts believe contributed to the weekend attack.
The Internet has played the parts of villain and savior in the assassination attempt against Trump and the troubled man who carried it out, 20-year-old Thomas Crooks.
Crooks has been identified as an avid consumer of firearm-related content online — he was even killed by Secret Service while wearing a T-shirt from a popular gun-tutorial YouTube channel.
Online radicalization — defined as adopting extreme political, social or religious beliefs or committing acts of violence after engaging with online content — has become a growing epidemic in the United States for decades.
One study found social media played a role in the radicalization of 27% of individuals between 2005 and 2010. In the five years following, that figure skyrocketed to 73%, per University of Pennsylvania.
More recently, surveys show that nearly one-third of Internet users have encountered hate speech online, with the figure rising to 50% among online gamers. YouTube’s algorithm specifically has been found to inadvertently promote extremist content.
Trump himself seems interested in combating these trends following the attempt on his life, telling reporters he has “thrown out” his original, hyper-aggressive Republican National Convention speech for this week in favor of a new draft that will attempt to unite and heal the wounded nation instead.
