How can you NOT be a Luigi conspiracist?

Show his picture, you cowards!

Embedded is your essential guide to what’s good on the internet, written by Kate Lindsay and edited by Nick Catucci.

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I’ve drastically slowed down my social media consumption since approximately 4:34 am on November 6th. I figured I’d get my news the old fashioned way: through the remaining digital media outlets that report it. But when news of the United Healthcare CEO assassination began to unfold, and especially after Luigi Mangione was arrested, I couldn’t get updates fast enough. I was reading the NYT live feed, refreshing Twitter, and deep in Google search results for his name that lead me to, yes, his Goodreads, but also his Facebook, Instagram, Reddit, LinkedIn, his 2016 valedictorian speech, and an article written about a video game club he cofounded at Penn.

And then, one by one, most of the accounts disappeared. The Penn article was removed, along with his Reddit, Facebook, and Instagram. His Goodreads was made private, and his Twitter account was briefly suspended before coming back online with a (presumably unsolicited) blue checkmark—way to kick someone when they’re down!

Most social media platforms have policies barring criminals suspected of serious crimes or “dangerous” individuals. But in this case, as a result, citizens’ access to public information about a high-profile crime was shut off within an afternoon—a fact made more concerning given that, for some reason, a number of media outlets joined the blackout.