As seen by The New York Times, Elon Musk shared an edited version of Kamala Harris’ campaign video Friday night that uses a deep voiceover to say things like, “I was elected because I’m a diverse employer,” in the VP’s voice. Nowhere does the post alert users to the fact that the video has been edited and includes comments that Harris did not make. Under X’s policies, users “must not share artificial, manipulated, or out-of-context media that may mislead or confuse people and lead to harm (‘misleading media’).”
The post has been trending all weekend, garnering more than 119 million views by early Sunday afternoon. Originally posted by another user, @MrReaganUSA, this is a joke. Among other things, the voice in the video says, “For four years I was taught by a deep-seated world cartoonist, a great mentor, Joe Biden.” Musk’s post — which simply said, “This is awesome,” with a laughing emoji — wasn’t labeled as misleading, which the site will sometimes do if it decides certain media is, and no Community Notes were added, though The NYT notes that several have been suggested.
Altered media in some cases is allowed to remain on the site and will not be labeled as misleading, according to X’s policies. That includes memes and satire, “as long as this doesn’t cause serious confusion about the authenticity of the media.” The possibility of deepfakes being used to sway voter opinions before elections has been a growing concern in recent years. Earlier this year, 20 tech companies signed an agreement pledging to help fight the “manipulative use of AI” in the 2024 election – including X.
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