It took just a few minutes to “flood” the internet with fake images, sexual insults, racist innuendos against Kamala Harris. Experts warn that these phenomena will only get worse. The US vice president announced her candidacy for the Democratic nomination on Sunday, after Joe Biden dropped out of the race.
With President Joe Biden announcing that he would withdraw from running for another term in office, Harris’s prospects, supported by the president, senior Democratic Party officials and the vast majority of Democratic congressmen and senators, have become a prominent feature of the United States. Black history and South Asian president of the United States.
A perspective that brought flood of sexist content and false allegations against herwith some of the false claims already debunked in the past.
Where do the attacks come from?
In this atmosphere, many in the conservative political field began writing that Harris “rose to the top” of American politics thanks to sexual favors, referring to her brief relationship with former San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown.
Others said she owes her political career to the fact that he is actually a man.
A photo also emerged showing her with Jeffrey Epstein – an American financier who killed himself in prison in 2019 before facing trial for sex crimes and trafficking.
However, this photo is the result of a photomontage, with Epstein’s image superimposed on that of the vice president’s husband, Douglas Emhoff.
“It’s important to call this rhetoric and lies what they are: an attempt to devalue the work of a powerful woman simply because of her gender, her background and the color of her skin,” complained Nina Jankovic, co-founder of the American Sunlight Project, which combats misinformation.
During the previous election, in 2020, Yankovic led a study that showed that 13 female politicians were the target of more than 336,000 pieces of content related to misinformation or gender-based insults.
78% of those attacks targeted Harris.
Racist comments
These attacks are not limited to sexist innuendos. Some say the US-born vice president cannot run because both of her parents came to the US as immigrants, while others accuse her of “inflating” her ethnic origins in the hope of gaining political advantage.
In 2020 local and national elections, minority candidates were twice as likely to be targeted by disinformation campaigns as other candidates, according to a report from the Washington-based Center for Democracy and Technology.
They were also four times more likely to be targeted by violence than white candidates.
Female politicians in the crosshairs of disinformation
Gender-based disinformation – false or misleading gender-based rhetoric – is a common reality for many female politicians around the world, with these attacks designed to tarnish their reputations, destroying their credibility and careers.
The US presidential election, which will take place on November 5, has traditionally spawned numerous disinformation campaigns. As the election approaches, researchers expect such attacks on Harris to increase.
Artificial Intelligence applications, now widely accessible and capable of producing fake and hyper-realistic images, threaten to further disrupt campaigns, especially on Elon Musk’s X platform, which is funding Trump’s re-election campaign.
The social network has significantly reduced content moderation and allowed accounts known for their role in spreading false content to continue using the platform.
“We should expect the full spectrum of disinformation,” warned Ronald Deibert, director of research at the University of Toronto, from “amateur productions” to “highly organized influence operations, sometimes supported by foreign powers.”
Sources: AMPE, AFP