Fact Check: Kamala Harris did not threaten to shutdown X
The video is from CNN CNN interview of Kamala Harris
By Sibahathulla Sakib Published on 9 Sep 2024 1:45 PM GMT
Claim: The video shows US presidential candidate Kamala Harris stating that she will shut down X.
Fact: The claim is false. Kamala Harris was speaking about suspending Donald Trump’s Twitter account in 2019.
Hyderabad: Against the backdrop of the upcoming presidential elections in the USA, a video has gone viral that claims to show US vice president and Democratic Party nominee Kamala Harris said she would shut down X (formerly Twitter) if elected president.
In the 28-second video, Kamala Harris can be heard saying, “He has lost his privileges and it should be taken down. The bottom line is that you have one rule for Facebook and you have a different rule for Twitter. There has to be a responsibility that is placed on these social media sites to understand their power. They are directly speaking to millions and millions of people without any level of oversight or regulation and that has to stop.”
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Fact Check
NewsMeter found that the claim is false.
We performed a reverse image search using the video’s keyframes, which led us to the website Internet Archive. The extended video of the viral clip was titled CNN Debate Post Analysis: Ohio, October 15, 2019
In the 1-minute extended footage, Kamala Harris could be seen saying speaking about former US president Donald Trump and his social media presence and activity while responding to a question from Jake Tapper, CNN anchor and chief Washington correspondent.
The viral clip was cropped and shared 32 seconds into the video to the end to make it look like she is only talking about the social media platforms and not Donald Trump.
With these leads and information, we performed a keyword search, which led us to the transcript of the same CNN interview.
According to the transcript from CNN, then presidential candidate Kamala Harris was responding to a question from Jake Tapper: “So, one of the topics that you chose to talk a lot about, especially confronting Sen. Warren on, was your push, your call, for Twitter to suspend the account of President Trump. Why was that important?”
Kamala Harris responded as, “He has lost his privileges, and it should be taken down. The bottom line is that you have one rule for Facebook and you have a different rule for Twitter. There has to be a responsibility that is placed on these social media sites to understand their power. They are directly speaking to millions and millions of people without any level of oversight or regulation and that has to stop.”
Donald Trump’s Twitter and Facebook accounts were suspended after the Capitol attack in January 2021, but there is no evidence that Harris ever said she would shut down X.
Hence, the claim is false. The viral video is a cropped version of a longer statement she made in 2019 about suspending Donald Trump’s Twitter account.
