Elon Musk posted a doctored campaign video of Kamala Harris on his social media platform X, failing to indicate that the video was altered. This breaches the platform's rules.
The video shared by Musk falls under the category of deepfake. The altered clip features a fabricated voice that resembles Kamala Harris's. In it, the alleged Democratic presidential candidate makes several provocative statements, including claiming to be the best option for diversity, stating that she spent four years under the guidance of a puppet, and accusing dissenters of racism and sexism.
Initially, this video was published by the account @MrReaganUSA, which noted that it was a “PARODY of Kamala Harris's campaign ad.” This warning is a requirement outlined in X's rules. However, when Elon Musk shared the same video, this parody disclaimer and indication of altered content were missing. Instead, Musk simply displayed the video in a post, adding his own comment, “This is amazing” with a laughing-crying emoji.
This is amazing 😂
pic.twitter.com/KpnBKGUUwn— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) July 26, 2024
According to X's rules, users “cannot share synthetic, manipulated, or out-of-context media that may mislead or confuse people and cause harm (‘deceptive media’).” These rules dictate that such content should be removed by the platform's administration.
However, violating the rules is not an issue if the rule-breaker is the owner of the platform. The fake video was posted last Friday and remains available on the site to this day, having garnered nearly 130 million views. The post was not tagged as misleading, which is something the site occasionally does when recognizing certain media as such. Additionally, there were no comments addressing misinformation using the Community Notes fact-checking tool, although The New York Times notes that several such comments were proposed. X's policy allows altered media to remain on the site in certain cases without being marked as misleading, including memes and satire, “provided they do not cause significant confusion regarding the authenticity of the media.”
In recent years, there has been growing concern over the potential use of deepfakes to influence voter opinions ahead of elections. Earlier this year, 20 tech companies signed an agreement committing to assist in combating the “fraudulent use of artificial intelligence” in the 2024 elections, including X. Yet, this has not deterred Musk from violating platform rules and commitments.
Source: Engadget
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