Rockstar Games seems to be playing cat-and-mouse with some Grand Theft Auto Online players who are using newly added tools to recreate the assassination of Charlie Kirk in the extremely popular online open-world crime simulator.
In September of last year, right-wing commentator Charlie Kirk was shot in the neck and killed during a public appearance at a college in Utah. In the weeks that followed, many people, including Jimmy Kimmel, found themselves in trouble for commenting or joking about it. Some even lost their jobs. Then, in December, right before the new year, Rockstar added a mission creator to GTA Online, letting players make their own solo missions. And it didn’t take long for some creators to start recreating Kirk’s killing in GTA Online, leading to an ongoing situation where it seems Rockstar is trying (and failing) to stop these assassination-themed missions from spreading.
Rockstar Games has added the term “Charlie Kirk” to the profanity filter in GTA Online after someone created this mission: pic.twitter.com/oEubYl6TG6
— GTA 6 Info (@GTASixInfo) January 12, 2026
On January 12, the Twitter account GTA 6Info posted a clip of what appears to be a user-created GTA Online mission called “We Are Charlie Kirk” that features the player being tasked with killing a man standing outside behind various props in a location that looks like a college campus. Once the man is killed, the mission is completed. GTA 6Info also claimed in the tweet that because of this mission, Rockstar Games has now added “Charlie Kirk” to GTA Online’s profanity filter. The tweet went viral, but it’s unclear if Rockstar did, in fact, add Kirk’s name to any such filter and if that particular mission is the reason.
Kotaku has contacted Rockstar Games for more information.
However, while Kotaku can’t confirm the specific claim in that tweet, it can verify that if you try to search for “Charlie Kirk” on the official custom jobs site for GTA Online, you’ll be greeted with an error regardless of which platform you pick. This also happens if you try to search for a slur or other vulgar term blocked by Rockstar. You can still search for Charlie or Kirk separately, and doing so will reveal that previously shared Kirk-themed maps, like the one from that viral video, seem to have been removed from GTA Online sometime between December 10, when the mission creator tool was added to the game, and today. Players appear to be using “Charlie Pink” or mashing his first and last names together to try and get around what appear to be Rockstar’s attempt to make it much harder to find and share these missions.
The question now is whether Rockstar Games will continue to play cat-and-mouse with creators trying to build and share recreations of Kirk’s murder. And if so, for how long will this trend continue in the live-service game? If I know the internet, Rockstar has a hard job ahead of it, especially as rumors of a banned topic spread online and entice more creators to try their luck at getting around any possible filters. We saw something like this happen in NBA 2K26 last year, with players using the in-game creator tools to create bloody characters referencing the killing.
