Elon Musk, the owner of X, retweeted a mock Kamala Harris campaign ad on Friday without calling it misleading, an apparent violation of his own platform’s rules.
Video segments in the edited content — such as Harris speaking to crowds and generic videos of her supporters — were used in a recent Harris’ campaign video on YouTube. Most notably, the altered content uses a voice that sounds like the vice president, making it appear that she is calling Biden senile and herself an incompetent presidential candidate.
In the opening video, Harris narrates, telling viewers, “In this election, each of us faces one question: What kind of country do we want to live in?” before breaking into Beyonce’s song ‘Freedom’.
The modified video reposted by Musk does not include Beyonce. Instead, a voice that sounds like Harris begins by saying, “I, Kamala Harris, am the Democratic nominee for president because Joe Biden finally revealed his senility in the debate.”
The voiceover goes on to say that Harris was chosen because she is “the ultimate diversity hire,” being 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.
The video comes as Republicans across the country this week accused Harris of being the “DEI candidate,” along with some referring to her race and gender as reasons why she was chosen to be the Democratic presidential nominee.
In a statement, Harris campaign spokeswoman Mia Ehrenberg blamed Musk and former President Donald Trump, saying, “We believe the American people want the real freedom, opportunity and security that Vice President Harris is offering; not the fake, manipulated lies by Elon Musk and Donald Trump.”
It was not immediately clear whether the video is the product of artificial intelligence. Originally posted by a YouTube account named “Mr. Reagan”, which characterized it as a parody.
Alexios Mandzalis, director of the Safety, Trust and Security Initiative at Cornell Tech, a graduate campus of Cornell University in New York, told NBC News that the modified content could be considered deepfakeis generally defined as deceptive content that uses artificial intelligence.
“In recent elections in Argentina, India and elsewhere, we’ve seen deepfakes used primarily for this kind of superficial deception that looks more like trolling memes than legitimate disinformation,” Mantzarlis said. “I expect we’ll see a lot of that in the U.S. for the next 100 days” leading up to the November election.
There is no official label on Musk’s retweet indicating that the video is a parody or manipulation, which may violate X’s own policy regarding misleading content.
“You may not share synthetic, manipulated, or out-of-context media that is likely to deceive or confuse people and result in harm (“misleading media”),” the policy states. “Additionally, we may flag posts that contain misleading media to help people understand their authenticity and provide additional context.”
This is not the first time that altered voice content has surfaced during this presidential campaign. Earlier this year, a political consultant ordered an impromptu call he impersonated President Joe Biden falsely discouraging people from participating in the New Hampshire primary.
Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar, a Democrat, accused Musk of violating his own company’s policy.
In a Position on X, wrote: “If @elonmusk and X let this go and don’t label it as AI modified content, not only will they be breaking X’s own rules, but they will unleash an entire election cycle of fake AI voice and altered content with an image without borders, regardless of party.”
X and Elon Musk did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Musk’s retweet of the video has been viewed 119.9 million times as of Sunday afternoon and 166,000 on Reagan’s YouTube account.
In the wake of an assassination attempt on Trump earlier this month, Musk officially approved former president’s campaign.
