(Washington) Doctored images, sexual insults, racist insinuations… Democratic candidate and Vice President Kamala Harris has been the target of a flood of false content on social networks since Sunday, which risks getting worse, experts warn.
Propelled into the race for the White House after the withdrawal of Joe Biden, who announced his support for her, Kamala Harris would become, if nominated by the Democratic Party, the first black woman of South Asian origin to aim for the presidency.
The news sparked a flood of sexist content and false allegations against her, some of which have been debunked in the past.
Several conservative figures have thus assured that Kamala Harris would have “reached the summit” of American politics thanks to sexual favors, pointing to her brief relationship with the former mayor of San Francisco, Willie Brown.
Other Internet users explain her political career by the fact that she is actually a man. A photograph showing her alongside Jeffrey Epstein (American financier who committed suicide in prison in 2019 before being able to be tried for crimes and sex trafficking) has also resurfaced.
However, this is a photomontage, with Mr. Epstein’s image having been placed over that of the vice-president’s husband, Douglas Emhoff.
“It’s critical to call out these narratives and lies for what they are: an attempt to denigrate the work of a powerful woman, simply because of her gender, background and skin color,” said Nina Jankowicz, co-founder of the American Sunlight Project, which fights misinformation.
Already attacked in 2020
In the previous elections, in 2020, Mr.me Jankowicz led a study that found that 13 female politicians had been targeted by more than 336,000 pieces of content involving misinformation or gender-based insults.
78% of these attacks then targeted Mme Harris.
These attacks are not limited to sexist allusions. Some Internet users claim that the vice president, born in the United States, cannot be a candidate because both of her parents immigrated, while others accuse her of “exaggerating” her ethnic origins in the hope of gaining political advantage.
In the 2020 state and local elections, female candidates from ethnic minority backgrounds 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.
Organized operations
Gendered disinformation (false or misleading narratives based on gender) is a common reality for many female politicians around the world, with attacks aimed at tarnishing their reputations, destroying their credibility and their careers.
The U.S. presidential election, which will take place on November 5, traditionally gives rise to numerous disinformation campaigns. As the deadline approaches, researchers expect that Mme Harris is particularly targeted.
Artificial intelligence (AI) tools, now widely available and capable of producing hyper-realistic fake images, threaten to further disrupt the campaign, particularly on X, whose owner, Elon Musk, has sided with Republican challenger Donald Trump.
The social network has significantly reduced its content moderation, and has allowed accounts known for their role in spreading false content to resume service.
“We have to expect the full spectrum of disinformation,” warned Ronald Deibert, a research director at the University of Toronto, ranging from “amateur productions” to “highly organized influence operations, sometimes supported by foreign powers.”