Elon Musk, the world’s richest man, has waded into one of the thorniest issues facing U.S. politics: deepfake videos, The New York Times reported.
On Friday night, Mr. Musk, the billionaire owner of the social media platform X, reposted an edited campaign video for Vice President Kamala Harris that appears to have been digitally manipulated to change the spot’s voice-over in a deceptive manner.
The video mimics Ms. Harris’s voice, but instead of using her words from the original ad, it has the vice president saying that President Biden is senile, that she does not “know the first thing about running the country” and that, as a woman and a person color, she is the “ultimate diversity hire.”
In addition, the clip was edited to remove images of former President Donald J. Trump and his running mate, Senator JD Vance of Ohio, to add images of Mr. Biden. The original unaltered ad, which the Harris campaign released on Thursday is titled “We Choose Freedom.”
The version posted on X does not contain a disclaimer, though the account that first uploaded it Friday morning, @MrReganUSA, noted in its post that the video was a “parody.” When Mr. Musk reposted the video on his own account eight hours later, he made no such disclosure, stating only, “This is amazing” followed by a laughing emoji.
Engadget reported: As spotted by The New York Times, Elon Musk shared an altered version of Kamala Harris’ campaign video on Friday night that uses a deepfake VoiceOver to say things like, “I was select because I am the ultimate diversity hire,” in he VP’s voice.
Nowhere does the post clear users to the fact that the video has been manipulated and features comments Harris did not actually say. Under X’s own policies, users “may not share synthetic, manipulated, or out-of-context media that may decide or confuse people and lead to harm (‘misleading media’).”
Altered media is in some cases allowed to stay up on the site and won’t be labeled as misleading, according to X’s policies. That includes memes and satire, “provided these do not cause significant confusion about the authenticity of the media.” The potential for deepfakes to be used to influence voters’ opinions ahead of the election has been a growing concern in recent years.
Rolling Stone reported billionaire Elon Musk shared a deepfake video of Vice President Kamala Harris manipulated to make it sound as though she spoke about President Joe Biden’s “senility” and that she does not “know the first thing about running the country.”
X’s policies explicitly prohibit “synthetic, manipulated or out-of-context media that may deceive or confuse people and lead to harm.” As of Sunday morning, X had not appended a Community Note to the post. Community Notes are used by the platform to correct misinformation or misleading posts. At the time of this publication, the video had garnered nearly 188 million views.
In my opinion, Elon Musk should not be allowing deep fakes on his platform – especially when the target of the deepfake is someone who is currently running for president. I cannot understand why he thinks this obviously manipulated video should stay up.