After a nationwide suspension of billionaire Elon Musk’s X platform in Brazil, social media customers — together with former unbiased presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. — are misrepresenting a years-old video of Vice President Kamala Harris to falsely declare that the Democratic presidential nominee has threatened to censor each X and Musk.
Here is a more in-depth have a look at the information.
CLAIM: A video clip portrays Harris as saying that she’s going to shut down X if she wins the 2024 presidential election and that Musk has “misplaced his privileges.”
THE FACTS: That is false. Harris was referring to Trump lengthy earlier than Musk purchased Twitter and rebranded it as X.
The clip is from 2019 and exhibits Harris talking with CNN host Jake Tapper after a Democratic main debate, discussing whether or not then-President Donald Trump’s profile needs to be faraway from the platform, referred to as Twitter on the time, and the way there must be elevated accountability for social media corporations.
Kennedy, who on Aug. 23 suspended his presidential bid and endorsed Trump, used the clip in an X submit as alleged proof that Harris was speaking about Musk, stating: “Can somebody please clarify to her that freedom of speech is a RIGHT, not a ‘privilege’?” He additionally offered his personal interpretation of Harris’ feedback on social media websites normally as follows: “In the event that they don’t police content material to evolve to government-approved narratives, they are going to be shut down.”
The submit had been appreciated and shared roughly 200,300 occasions as of Tuesday.
One other well-liked X submit that shared the video merely reads: “Kamala will shut down X if she wins.” It has been appreciated and shared roughly 105,000 occasions. Different social media customers claimed that Harris was talking in help of a Brazilian Supreme Court docket justice who made the choice final week to dam X.
In prolonged footage of the interview, a part of CNN’s post-debate evaluation on Oct. 15, 2019, Tapper requested Harris: “So, one of many subjects that you just selected to speak rather a lot about, particularly confronting Sen. Warren on, was your push, your name, for Twitter to droop the account of President Trump. Why was that vital?”
Tapper was referring to the second within the debate when Harris criticized then-fellow Democratic candidate Sen. Elizabeth Warren for not urging such a suspension. Twitter did finally ban Trump’s account in January 2021, citing “the danger of additional incitement of violence” after the lethal revolt on the U.S. Capitol, with a number of different social media platforms kicking him off across the identical time. Musk restored Trump’s account in November 2022 after he purchased the platform.
Harris responded through the interview that Trump had “confirmed himself to be keen to hinder justice” and that what he says on Twitter “impacts individuals’s perceptions about what they need to and mustn’t do.”
She continued: “And so far as I am involved, and I feel most individuals would say, together with members of Congress who he has threatened, that he has misplaced his privileges and it needs to be taken down.”
Harris didn’t name for the platform as a complete to be shut down. Quite, she advocated for elevated accountability.
“The underside line is you can’t say that you’ve got one rule for Fb and you’ve got a unique rule for Twitter,” she said. “The identical rule has to use, which is that there must be a duty that’s positioned on these social media websites to know their energy. They’re immediately chatting with thousands and thousands and thousands and thousands of individuals with none stage of oversight or regulation, and that has to cease.”
The alternate is mirrored in CNN’s transcript of the protection.
The Harris marketing campaign directed an Related Press inquiry concerning the false claims to a Democratic Nationwide Committee spokesperson, who declined to remark. Representatives for Trump and Kennedy didn’t reply to a request for remark.
Brazilian Supreme Court docket Justice Alexandre de Moraes ordered X blocked final Friday for refusing to call a neighborhood authorized consultant, as required by legislation. His resolution was unanimously upheld by a courtroom panel on Monday. X had eliminated its authorized consultant from Brazil on the grounds that de Moraes had threatened her with arrest. The platform will keep suspended till it complies with de Moraes’ order and pays excellent fines.
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