Elon Musk, the owner of X, retweeted a parody Kamala Harris campaign ad Friday without labeling it as misleading, an apparent violation of his own platform’s rules.
Segments of video in the altered content — such as Harris, the presumed Democratic nominee for president, speaking to crowds and general videos of her supporters — were used in a recent Harris campaign video on YouTube. Most notably, the altered content uses a voiceover that sounds like the vice president, making it seem she is calling President Joe Biden senile and herself an incompetent presidential candidate.
Harris narrates in the original video, telling viewers, “In this election, we each face a question: What kind of country do we want to live in?” before she breaks into Beyoncé’s song “Freedom.”
The altered video Musk reposted does not include Beyoncé. Instead, a voice that sounds like Harris’ begins by saying, “I, Kamala Harris, am your Democrat candidate for president because Joe Biden finally exposed his senility at the debate.”
The voice goes on to say Harris was selected because she is “the ultimate diversity hire” as she’s both a woman and a person of color.
“So if you criticize anything, I say you’re both sexist and racist,” the voice continues.
The video then accuses Harris of “trying to sound Black” and doing a “Barack Obama impression” in her speeches.
Republicans across the country in the past week have accused Harris of being the “DEI candidate,” with some alluding to her race and her gender as reasons she was selected to be the Democratic nominee.
In a statement, Harris campaign spokesperson Mia Ehrenberg blasted Musk and former President Donald Trump, saying, “We believe the American people want the real freedom, opportunity, and security Vice President Harris is offering; not the fake, manipulated lies of Elon Musk and Donald Trump.”
It was not immediately clear whether the video is a product of artificial intelligence. It was originally posted by a YouTube account by the name of “Mr Reagan,” which labeled it as a parody.
Alexios Mantzarlis, the director of the Security, Trust, and Safety Initiative at Cornell Tech, Cornell University’s graduate campus in New York City, indicated to NBC News that the altered content may be considered a deepfake, generally defined as misleading content using artificial intelligence.
“In recent-ish elections in Argentina, India and elsewhere, we saw deepfakes being used primarily for this type of surface-level deception that’s more akin to trolling memes than to legitimate misinformation,” Mantzarlis said. “I expect we’ll see plenty of this in the U.S. for the next 100 days” until the November election.
There is no official label on Musk’s retweet indicating that the video is a parody or has been manipulated, which may violate X’s policy regarding misleading content.
“You may not share synthetic, manipulated, or out-of-context media that may deceive or confuse people and lead to harm (‘misleading media’),” the policy says. “In addition, we may label posts containing misleading media to help people understand their authenticity and to provide additional context.”
This is not the first time altered voice content has appeared during this presidential campaign. A political consultant ordered up a robocall this year` that impersonated Biden falsely discouraging people from participating in New Hampshire’s primary election.
Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., accused Musk of violating his company’s own policy.
She wrote on X, “If @elonmusk and X let this go and don’t label it as altered AI content, they will not only be violating X’s own rules, they’ll be unleashing an entire election season of fake AI voice and image-altered content with no limits, regardless of party.”
X and Musk did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Musk’s retweet of the video had been viewed 119.9 million times as of Sunday afternoon and 166,000 on Mr Reagan’s YouTube account.
In the wake of an attempted assassination against Trump this month, Musk formally endorsed his campaign.
