Is Musk's Kamal Harris Deepfake Video Disrupting US Politics or Wreaking Havoc?
On Friday, Elon Musk has reposted a deepfake video featuring the presidential candidate Kamala Harris’s voice with false statements, raising concerns about manipulating AI in politics.
The X owner has reposted an edited version of Kamala Harris’s campaign, which mimicked her voice and delivered false statements related to her describing President Joe Biden as “senile” and herself as an unqualified “diversity hire.”
The video replaced also changed the images of Donald Trump and Senator JD Vance with those of Biden. Speaking of Musk’s reaction, he reposted the video, which was initially posted by @MrReaganUSA, without adding any comment while the Harris campaign condemned the video and highlighted that security and truth are key factors over deceitful content.
Experts and groups supporting democracy have pointed out that deepfake technology employs AI for the creation of fake audios, videos, and images, thereby can affect democracy by spreading false information and influence voters during elections.
Violating His Own Policies
Musk’s reaction on this video appears to be violating the policies of his on social media platform when it comes to sharing misleading or manipulated media.
According to Alex Howard, a digital governance expert, “This is a violation of @X’s policies on synthetic media & misleading identities,” urging that this issue must be addressed as soon as possible.
This is not the first time such technology has been used in politics as malicious actors used deepfake AI-generated robocalls imitating Biden’s voice and fake videos showing false pollical supports.
Social Media’s Policy Paradox
Deepfake technology is an issue encountered on social media with many platforms have tried to limit it in many ways. Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, calls for manipulated media to be labeled. Google-owned YouTube does the same for synthetic media. The policy of X, at least as it is currently drafted, tries to do this, although enforcement of such rules is irregular.
Final Thoughts
One cannot deny that Elon Musk is a controversy himself, but has a great impact on social media, specifically on X. So, considering this huge impact, he might have shared the manipulated video of Harris to explicitly show his full support to Trump in the upcoming US election.
While being fully aware that AI in politics deepfakes is convincingly able to change both audio and video, the US billionaire’s act is showing carelessness towards the integrity of political discourse.
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