Musk reposts an edited Kamala Harris campaign video that mimics her voice, possibly with deepfake tech; it has 129M+ views and seemingly breaks X's own rules

The billionaire owner of the social media platform X reposted a video that mimics Vice President Kamala Harris's voice, without disclosing that it had been altered.

New York Times 2024-07-29 Ken Bensinger

Context & Ripple Effects

This sits in a broader X credibility arc: the platform had already promoted a fake Iran-attack headline on its Explore page, exposing the gap between real-time news ambitions and distribution controls.

The case matters because the platform owner is also the distributor. Later coverage in this corpus documented unlabeled election-related claims from Musk reaching enormous audiences, making this more than an isolated content-moderation edge case.

First-order effects

The altered clip gains exceptional reach through Musk's account while Harris and her campaign must contend with a voice imitation presented without an alteration disclosure.
X faces an immediate, highly visible test of whether its synthetic-media rules apply consistently when the alleged violation is amplified by its owner.

Second-order effects

The apparent policy conflict makes labels, removals, and other enforcement decisions more consequential for X's trust with political users, advertisers, and news consumers.
Other platforms and campaigns have stronger reason to treat prominent-account amplification—not just original upload—as a key risk in handling synthetic political media.

Third-order effects

If owner-led exceptions become a recurring pattern, platform safety policies may function less as predictable governance and more as discretionary rules, increasing pressure for accountability at the distribution layer.
This points toward synthetic-media governance centered on provenance and reach: effective safeguards may need to address both how a clip is made and who algorithmically or socially amplifies it.

The trend: Political deepfakes are shifting the governance challenge from detecting altered media alone to controlling high-reach distribution and enforcing rules consistently on influential accounts.

Discussion

@amyklobuchar Amy Klobuchar on threads
If Elon Musk and X let this go and don't label it as altered AI content, they will not only be violating X's own rules, they'll be unleashing an entire election season of fake AI voice and image-altered content with no limits, regardless of party. https://www.nytimes.com/...
@renee.diresta Renee DiResta on threads
Deepfake audio content of politicians is political speech and is largely unregulatable. Anyone now has the ability to create it. Soon, everyone will be. The barrier now is distribution. Social media platforms' manipulated media policies are supposed to add context — labels, i…
@therealmikeelgan Mike Elgan on threads
Phrase of the moment: “billionaire troll” https://www.rollingstone.com/ ...
@davidgura David Gura on threads
a suggested emendation:
@renee.diresta Renee DiResta on threads
And X simply doesn't want to. Remember - labels are “censorship”. Fact-checking is “censorship”. Downranking. Etc. Everyrhing is “censorship”. Community Notes, another context-adding option, have been proposed on this particularly manipulated media content, but aren't being…
@reckless1280 Nilay Patel on threads
Conservatives really playing with fire by spreading deepfake audio of Kamala - their guy has a very recognizable voice and people will believe he's said literally anything! Maybe put this demon back in the box, y'all
@davmicrot David Rothschild on threads
Billionaire white supremacist misogynist antisemite xenophobe (despite being immigrant) trans-hating owner/CEO of massive defense contractor & electric vehicle company & social media company, Elon Musk, is an absurd national security threat who is now regularly producing & distri…
@hunterwalk @hunterwalk on threads
where's Jim Jordan calling for hearings? — https://www.nytimes.com/...
@philihp Philihp Busby on threads
Time to bring back PGP keys to validate humanity.
@wongmjane Jane Manchun Wong on threads
The unconsensual use of AI voice clones of political opposition bothers me. It shouldn't be done to anyone without their consent, period It goes both ways — if you tolerate or encourage generating AI imagery or speech of people you disagree with, then you can't effectively argue…
@digiphile Alex Howard on threads
I was surprised to find myself in the @nytimes today, after I asked Elon Musk about sharing media made with AI: https://www.nytimes.com/... In the past, some reporters have reached out to me before doing so, but I've also run many articles before quoting folks' public tweets & po…
@lorakolodny Lora Kolodny on threads
Today, Elon Musk - who is the CEO of a major US defense contractor, SpaceX — used his social network that he owns and runs as CTO to insult VP Kamala Harris by calling her “Shamala” and an “extinctionist.”
@timothyjchambers Tim Chambers on threads
Another example of Community Notes on X being useless: — “'This is an AI-generated video of Vice President Kamala Harris using audio of clips that were never actually stated by the VP' read one...'Videos like this are dangerous to those who can not decipher AI-generated content…
@bhaggs Bryan Haggerty on threads
At Twitter, prior to the 2020 election, we anticipated that deceptively altering media (e.g., deepfakes) was going to be a potential issue. We developed policies on this as well as updates to the UI to indicate such deceptively manipulated media. We worried about bad actors, ev…
@karaswisher Kara Swisher on threads
Feels like a particularly deep K-hole this weekend. ALLEGEDLY. (This is satire!)
@davepell Dave Pell on threads
Jack gets wronger every day.
@lorakolodny Lora Kolodny on threads
I have been reporting on Elon Musk and his companies for years (since 2017) weekly and even before that here & there on the climate, tech & venture capital beats I worked on before. This is a special weekend of bananas tweets even by Musk standards. Here's another one in which …
@karaswisher Kara Swisher on threads
He's scared. https://www.nytimes.com/...
@willoremus Will Oremus on threads
concerning https://www.nytimes.com/...
@lorakolodny Lora Kolodny on threads
About that unlabeled, spoof political ad Elon Musk shared to his 190 million + followers.... via @nytimes - https://www.nytimes.com/...
@davidaugust@mastodon.online David August on mastodon
@MikeElgan interesting how AI in Elon's hands is destructive. He is one of the key problems with AI.
@digiphile@mastodon.social Alex Howard on mastodon
As everyone can see, Community Notes has failed to add a note for Musk's tweet so far. The sysadmin of this website has always been THE stress case for the fact-checking feature. — Given that outcome, X should begin requiring all creators to indicate if media we share was crea…
@digiphile@mastodon.social Alex Howard on mastodon
I was surprised to find myself in the New York Times today, after I asked Elon Musk about sharing media made with AI: https://www.nytimes.com/... Musk hasn't responded yet, but then I didn't expect him to do so —. much less acknowledge breaking the rules of the service formerly …
@elonmusk Elon Musk on x
This is amazing 😂 [video]
@amyklobuchar Amy Klobuchar on x
If ⁦@elonmusk⁩ and X let this go and don't label it as altered AI content, they will not only be violating X's own rules, they'll be unleashing an entire election season of fake AI voice and image-altered content with no limits, regardless of party. https://www.nytimes.com/...
@albertwenger Albert Wenger on x
X might as well not have a TOS at this point ...
@jamessurowiecki James Surowiecki on x
Posting a video that shows Harris saying politically damaging things she never said, without making it very clear it's a parody, seems like the definition of defamation. [image]
@balajis Balaji on x
It was clearly labeled a parody. Via both the crying emoji and the footnote. And, of course, the content. [image]
@tvmojoe @tvmojoe on x
From widely respected head of advertising for NBCUniversal to radical extremist figurehead CEO of a far right propaganda arm. Everything Trump touches...
@jamessurowiecki James Surowiecki on x
I'm skeptical that if someone made a deepfake video with an AI-generated Trump bragging about having taken money from Putin, admitting that he knew he lost in 2020, and laughing at all the rubes who voted for him, Elon Musk would let it stay up, let alone retweet it.
@garymarcus Gary Marcus on x
Fvck this site. It's bad enough that we live in a world filled with deepfakes designed to influence the election. We don't need the owner of the site - who was tweaked the algorithm to promote his own tweets - gleefully adding to the dishonesty.
@zaleskiluke Luke Zaleski on x
@donie @elonmusk You're living through the largest longest coordinated propaganda campaign and hostile takeover attempt in the history of humanity, folks. And if you think it's unrelated to Elon replatforming every vaccine and election denier and wingnut you're not paying attenti…
@jules_su Jules Suzdaltsev on x
Elon making a deepfake AI of a political candidate in an attempt to influence an election is *literally illegal* and blatant election interference actually. https://www.fec.gov/...
@donie Donie O'Sullivan on x
Harris campaign on @elonmusk sharing this video with fake audio of VP: “We believe 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.”
@greg16676935420 Greg on x
@elonmusk Is this AI or real
@franklinisbored Franklin on x
@elonmusk MAGA has run out of ways to attack Kamala because nothing sticks. Now they're pivoting to AI. Let that sink in.
@swisswatchguy Peter Henlein on x
@elonmusk Don't use AI generated voices to attack candidates. That just opens this all up to something far worse.
@jules_su Jules Suzdaltsev on x
@elonmusk it's blatant election interference and violates the Fraudulent Misrepresentation Doctrine https://www.fec.gov/... [image]
@jules_su Jules Suzdaltsev on x
@elonmusk hard to overstate how insane, and frankly illegal what you're doing here is you can't make AI versions of political candidates for a campaign ad you fucking fascist
@digiphile Alex Howard on x
@elonmusk 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? cc @lindayaX @nickpickles [image]
r/samharris r on reddit
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r/Law_and_Politics r on reddit
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r/facepalm r on reddit
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r/Fuckthealtright r on reddit
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r/musked r on reddit
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r/thebulwark r on reddit
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r/NewsOfTheStupid r on reddit
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r/elonmusk r on reddit
Elon on X: This is Amazing 😂
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r/LibertarianUncensored r on reddit
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r/USNewsHub r on reddit
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r/Twitter r on reddit
Elon Musk Shares Manipulated Harris Video, in Seeming Violation of X's Policies | The billionaire owner of the social media platform X reposted …
r/EnoughMuskSpam r on reddit
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r/inthenews r on reddit
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r/politics r on reddit
Elon Musk Shares Manipulated Harris Video, in Seeming Violation of X's Policies

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