For example, on Oct. 4, a user managing the Kitten Cuties Facebook page posted (archived) the story about the elder Kirk with a single image displaying three different pictures. The pictures depicted a woman — possibly Charlie Kirk's wife, Erika, or his mother, whom The Guardian and The New York Times reported with the name Kathryn — crying while holding a framed photo of Robert Kirk, Charlie Kirk's father embracing him in a heaven-like environment and a family photo with all four family members, including his sister, whom The Daily Beast reported with the name Mary.
(Kitten Cuties/Facebook)
Other Facebook (archived) and Instagram (archived) users also shared the same claim, as well as some of the same images. The Kitten Cuties post, as well as others, featured links in top comments leading to advertisement-filled articles hosted on WordPress blogs. Two examples included links redirecting from newsgreen.org to an article on greenisland.linkxtop.com, as well as one redirecting from livenews24h.com to an article on kok.xemgihomnay247.com.
Searches of Bing, DuckDuckGo, Google and Yahoo found no news outlets confirming news of Robert Kirk's death. Some prominent outlets would have reported this rumor, if true.
The person or people who started the rumor — people residing in countries outside the U.S. — fabricated the entire tale and created several artificial intelligence (AI)-generated images of the Kirk family, with at least the partial goal of earn advertising revenue on the websites hosting the aforementioned articles.
Snopes emailed Turning Point USA to obtain an official statement confirming Robert Kirk had not died, as well as contacted via Messenger a manager of the Kitten Cuties Facebook page to ask about the content, and will update this article if we receive more information.
The text from the posts
The most commonly shared text caption promoting the rumor, including in the Kitten Cuties Facebook page's post (archived), read as follows:
15 MINUTES AGO: Heartbreaking Loss Strikes Again in the Kirk Family—Robert W. Kirk Dies After Never Recovering From the Pain of Losing His Son Charlie. In a devastating twist, the Kirk family has suffered yet another unbearable loss. Robert W. Kirk, still reeling from the tragic death of his son, Charlie, has passed away after never fully recovering from the overwhelming grief. His death has left the family, and the world, in mourning, as fans reflect on the immense pain and heartbreak the family has endured. The shock and sorrow continue to ripple through those who knew them, and the question remains—how much more can the Kirk family endure?
AI-generated images
The images users included with the Kirk family posts displayed at least some fake pictures. Users created at least two of the images with AI tools, including the pictures depicting a woman holding a framed photo and the one with Kirk's father embracing him in a heaven-like environment. Both images displayed an overly smooth appearance, in particular on the subjects' skin — one of several modern-day signs of AI-created pictures. Also, the idea a photographer could travel to a place where people exist after death did not square with reality.
Another example of the page's managers publishing fabricated content with AI-created images included one post claiming country music icon Dolly Parton was battling a "serious health condition" from a hospital bed — one day after Parton officially addressed similar rumors in a video on her official social media pages. Parton's post displayed the text caption, "I ain't dead yet!"
Possible explanation for website redirect strategy
The users who created the Facebook posts featuring the rumor used redirects, such as the aforementioned newsgreen.org link, leading to an article on greenisland.linkxtop.com.
This strategy potentially involved an effort to protect from Facebook blocking links to visit their primary domain names, such as linkxtop.com.
Pages managed from outside US
The Kitten Cuties Facebook page's "page transparency" tab displayed information revealing its page managers primarily resided in Vietnam, despite the Denver, Colorado, mailing address in its bio. Motivational Speaker, another Facebook page promoting (archived) the rumor, showed information for page managers living in North Macedonia. Other pages featured page manager details about Pakistan, the Philippines and other countries.
In September, The Associated Press reported about Russia, China and pro-Iran groups spreading disinformation about Kirk's killing, in an effort to widen political divisions among U.S. residents. We did not yet find any information confirming whether people residing in these countries directed the aforementioned page managers in North Macedonia, Pakistan, the Philippines and Vietnam to create the false rumor about Kirk's father.
Fabricated hospital rumor about Robert Kirk
A previously posted rumor from late September, also circulating in Facebook posts, claimed Kathryn Kirk revealed someone rushed Robert Kirk to a hospital.
The varying rumors of his hospitalization and death, as well as a claim that Robert Kirk cried out, "Give me back my son!" at his son's graveside, showed Facebook users varying their efforts with many different fabricated stories — much like how a company's marketing team would experiment with various strategies and measure success — again for at least the partial goal of generating ad revenue from the externally linked articles.
For further reading, Snopes previously reported on another story claiming Charlie Kirk once stopped his car on a dark highway to help change a transgender man's tire.