Doctored videos of Vice President Kamala Harris have gone viral on social media platform X gaining millions of views. The surge in deepfake content targeting Harris began less than 24 hours after her first campaign speech and shows no sign of slowing in the lead up to the presidential election.

One deepfake shows Harris repeatedly fumbling her words, in contrast to the actual footage of her smooth speech alongside President Joe Biden following a major prisoner swap.

The recent deepfake video, first posted on Truth Social by Donald Trump, mocked Harris with the labels “DUMB!” and “extremely Low IQ.” The video reshared on X by an account that mirrors Trump’s posts to its 800k followers, where it quickly received over 769k views.

Elon Musk, the billionaire owner of X has also been accused of fuelling disinformation on his social media platform when he shared a fake video of the Vice President in a political ad, portraying her as mocking Biden and calling herself “the ultimate diversity hire.”

Musk shared the video with the words “This is amazing” and a laughing emoji, which racked up over 135 million views.

Musk is also accused of bias after pro-Harris accounts have been labelled as “spam” on X, with certain accounts being restricted.

The deepfakes have sparked debate over social media platforms’ responsibility to control the spread of disinformation in the lead up to the presidential elections.

The creator of the video reshared by Musk is from a YouTuber known as Mr Reagan who disclosed on YouTube and X that the video was manipulated, labelling it as “Kamala Harris Campaign Ad PARODY.”

However, users on X have argued that this content violates X’s terms of service, which ban “synthetic, manipulated, or out-of-context media” that could mislead or harm viewers.

Ken Bensinger, reporter at The New York Times, said: “Before reposting a heavily edited and manipulated Harris campaign ad, Elon Musk removed the word “parody” and, in apparent violation of X’s own rules, added no note or context.”

The video looks similar to that used in her campaign but swaps Harris’s voice with an AI-generated voice to impersonate her.

The video opens with: “I, Kamala Harris, am your Democrat candidate for president because Joe Biden finally exposed his senility at the debate.”

Rob Weissman, co-president of advocacy group Public Citizen, noted that the ad could easily deceive viewers. “I’m certain that most people looking at it don’t assume it’s a joke,” he said. The quality isn’t great, but it’s good enough. And precisely because it feeds into preexisting themes that have circulated around her, most people will believe it to be real.”

Highlighting the issue of deepfakes on elections, Chuck Schumer, Senate Majority Leader, said in a recent interview: “Deepfakes are a serious, serious threat to this democracy. If people can no longer believe that the person they’re hearing speak is actually the person, this democracy has suffered — it will suffer — in ways that we have never seen before.”

The deepfake videos targeting Harris are also seen as part of a broader effort to undermine women’s participation in politics.

Disinformation expert Nina Jankowicz highlights the gendered nature of these attacks, identifying the three main narratives used to undermine Harris.

The first involves sexualisation, with a narrative that Harris allegedly “slept her way to the top.” According to Jankowicz, this tactic is designed to “demean her, to humiliate her, to make her seem unfit for office.”

A far-right user on X, Matt Wallace, posted a black-and-white photo claiming that it shows Harris as a sex worker, shortly after her first campaign trail speech for the Democrats’ presidential nomination. The post, which has nearly 160,000 views, links to a video on the platform Rumble. The video promotes claims that Harris engaged in various sexual relations to advance her career. 

The second category of narratives are described by Jankowicz as racialised, where Harris is attacked for allegedly not being “Black or South Asian enough.”

The third narrative, seen most recently in the doctored parody video shared by Elon Musk, revolves around diversity, equity, and inclusion.

Jankowicz emphasises that these narratives are strategically crafted to erode Harris’s credibility and distract from her political achievements.

Melanie Smith, Director of Research for the Institute of Strategic Dialogue, referring to Harris, said: “They’re not trolling her just to troll her. There’s a broader effort at play that is connected to undermining women’s participation in democracy and women holding office,” she said. “There is this bigger agenda.”