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.

Elon Musk, the world’s richest man, has waded into one of the thorniest issues facing U.S. politics: deepfake videos.

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 of color, she is the “ultimate diversity hire.”

Pro-democracy groups have raised increasingly urgent alarms about deepfakes, a broad term for digital content that employs artificial intelligence and other technology to create audio, video or images that spread false information and could influence voter behavior.

  • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
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    3 months ago

    Shocked, SHOCKED I am that the white guy who grew up rich under South African apartheid is a racist who will use racist tactics to defame a black woman he doesn’t like.

    • palordrolap@kbin.run
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      3 months ago

      That brings up an interesting if not ironic bit of birtherism: I get the feeling he’d be running for President himself if he was eligible.

      • worldwidewave@lemmy.world
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        3 months ago

        I’ve seen enough Superman stories to recognize a Lex Luthor type when I see one. I could absolutely see him, or Bezos, running for President or Governor someday.

      • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
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        3 months ago

        Maybe, but I’m not so sure it would be a long campaign. At his core, he is extremely lazy. Trump, for all of his faults, is not lazy. Elon would get very tired of going on the campaign trail because it means work. He couldn’t just sit around and Tweet himself into the Oval Office.

        • IvanOverdrive@lemm.ee
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          3 months ago

          That makes zero sense. Elon Musk is a workaholic. You know, the polar opposite of lazy. He’s a POS but lazy he is not. Rather than campaigning, Trump plays golf. Dude’s as lazy as lazy gets.

            • oyo@lemm.ee
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              3 months ago

              Anything to avoid spending time with his kids. But seriously, friends who used to work for him said they’d find him at 7am sleeping under conference room tables.

              • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
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                3 months ago

                Used to. And also friends.

                I’ve heard he’s a brilliant engineer who really understands car design from people who used to work at Tesla too.

                I buy that just as much.

            • chaogomu@lemmy.world
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              3 months ago

              Just after Elden Ring came out, Musk tweeted out his build. Internet sleuths figured out he would have needed to play about 12 hours a day to have that build, and that it was kind of shit.

          • TheRealKuni@lemmy.world
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            3 months ago

            I’m not sure why you’re being downvoted. Even people who don’t like him highlight his long work hours. “Workaholic” isn’t something to be proud of.

    • x00z@lemmy.world
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      3 months ago

      I don’t think he’s racist.

      I think it’s more about how Trump would make him more money.

  • Th4tGuyII@fedia.io
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    3 months ago

    Elon Musk openly flouting the rules of the platform he owns to knowingly share misinformation to disparage a woman he doesn’t like…

    Tell me Elon is a right wing shill without telling me he’s a right-wing shill

    • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
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      3 months ago

      Watch- he’ll say it was one of his many “hilarious” jokes and his sycophants with circle the wagons and the press will be worried about their Twitter accounts and then this will be forgotten until the next time.

  • Dem Bosain@midwest.social
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    3 months ago

    “…Seeming…”

    FUCK the New York Times. They’re so afraid of sounding biased they’re incapable of just reporting the news. This is a CLEAR violation of Twitter rules.

    • Transporter Room 3@startrek.website
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      3 months ago

      In the tiny amount of time we have to comprehend our impending doom should the sun explode (we will know in 8ish minutes, the force arrives very shortly after that), they would report “SUN APPEARS TO EXPLODE, WHAT COULD THIS MEAN FOR FUTURE ELECTIONS?”

    • blakemiller@lemmy.world
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      3 months ago

      There’s actually legal reasons why publications would pay special care to their word choice like this. The difference between seeming violation and violation comes down to hard proof. Whether we like Elon’s sideshow or not, if there is a defendable claim that his post didn’t violate (e.g. new policy that allows it was approved internally but not yet published publicly), NYT could land themselves in a lawsuit that they have a chance of losing. Then ask yourself how many stories do they publish a day? The risk starts to add up quick.

      So the word seeming is doing some heavy lifting there. If you ignore the ass covering, they did still report truth on something important.

    • Why9@lemmy.world
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      3 months ago

      Trump promised he won’t open the Epstein files if he gets re-elected. Suddenly Musk started throwing money at him and breaking any rule to censor the opposition party and smear them.

      This has little to do with the lying orange Turd. Musk cares about his own pedo past and is desperate to not have that info leak out.

  • Ensign_Crab@lemmy.world
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    3 months ago

    What’s that, Elon? Share deepfakes of you saying that your products are all shit and that you miss Rhodesia?

    • EisFrei@lemmy.world
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      3 months ago

      Did I miss his connection to Zimbabwe (formerly Rhodesia)?

      I thought he was from South Africa, which does indeed share a border with Zimbabwe.

        • EisFrei@lemmy.world
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          3 months ago

          Well… When complaining about a lack of facts I prefer not to counter with a lack of facts

          • skulblaka@sh.itjust.works
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            3 months ago

            It has become abundantly clear that the only way to make any of these people care at all about the bullshit firehose is to turn it upon them.

            I don’t like it either.

      • ImADifferentBird@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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        3 months ago

        It’s kind of common for white supremacists to lament the fall of Rhodesia. It was a thing among that set for a while.

        Another common thing: comparing Biden’s America to Weimar Germany.

  • digdilem@lemmy.ml
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    3 months ago

    Like laws even apply to rich people in America, let alone rules from a company you own.

  • doodledup@lemmy.world
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    3 months ago

    Why is there no video in the article? Not even a link to it. Why is the whole internet talking about this video but nobody seems have it?