Elon Musk reposts deepfake video of US VP Kamala Harris; post gets lakhs of reshares, likes

Elon Musk has sparked controversy by sharing a digitally altered video of Vice President Kamala Harris. This video, originally released by the Harris campaign, was manipulated to change the voice-over and make Harris appear to say disparaging things about President Biden and herself. The altered video was posted by the account @MrReaganUSA, which described it as a “parody,” but Musk reposted it without any disclaimer, stating only, “This is amazing,” followed by a laughing emoji. The post has over 2.38 lakh reposts and over 9.24 lakh likes. 

Some observers quickly criticised Musk for sharing misleading content. One users said, "Don’t use AI generated voices to attack candidates. That just opens this all up to something far worse."

Another user said, "This is exactly the dangerous kind of misinformation that will undermine the mission of free speech. You are crossing a line! Stop it!"

Alex Howard, a digital governance expert, tweeted, “This is a violation of @X’s policies on synthetic media & misleading identities. Are you going to retroactively change them to allow violations in an election year?”

Many of Donald Trump supporters have spoken in favour of the video with deep fake voice of VP Kamala Harris.  

The Harris campaign issued a statement condemning the manipulated video. According to a report by NYT, the statement said, “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.”

Social media platforms have been grappling with how to handle manipulated media. Meta requires that such media be labeled, and Google has a policy requiring disclosure when content might be mistaken for real. X’s policy, instituted in April 2023, states that misleading media must either be labeled or removed. Musk has previously suggested using X’s “Community Notes” feature to alert the public to possible misinformation, but no such note was added to his post about the Harris video.

Indian elections were also plagued by deepfake videos of prominent politicians. Some politicians willingly used deepfake videos to expand the reach of their campaign, across ethnicities and geographies.