Monday 07/22/2024 06:30 p. m. undefined
Manipulated images, sexist insults and racial innuendos: the false narratives on the Internet about Kamala Harris They emerged in torrents just after the Democrat emerged as the most likely to replace the president Joe Biden in the US presidential race.
The premature favoritism of the former senator and prosecutor, according to experts, came with an avalanche of gender-based misinformation.
Harris, an African-American of South Asian descent and the only female vice president in U.S. history, is now vying to clinch her party’s nomination to face Donald Trump in November after President Joe Biden withdrew his bid to return to the White House.
The explosion of misogynistic and sexist narratives about Harris, including stories that have been debunked in the past, highlights how a non-white candidate can quickly become an easy target for online abuse, harassment and misinformation.
Shortly after Biden stepped aside, leaving Harris in pole position to be the Democratic nominee, a manipulated image of her supposedly posing for a photo alongside Jeffrey Epstein, the tycoon convicted of sex trafficking who died in prison in 2019, was recirculated on social media.
The image, verified as fake by AFP journalists using a reverse image search, was manipulated to include Epstein instead of Harris’ husband, Douglas Emhoff.
Also recycled was the misogynistic insinuation that Harris sexually favored her way “to the top” of American politics, citing her brief relationship in the 1990s with former San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown.
The accusation was raised again on Sunday by influential conservative figures such as Candace Owens, Matt Walsh and Clay Travis.
“It’s important to label these narratives and lies for what they are: an attempt to undermine a powerful woman’s public service because of her gender, her background, her skin color,” said Nina Jankowicz, co-founder of the disinformation watchdog American Sunlight Project.
“I challenge anyone who opposes Harris’s candidacy to engage in a substantive debate about the merits of her policies and record, rather than calling her disgusting names.”
‘Lies and conspiracies’
In 2020, Jankowicz led a study that found more than 336,000 instances of “gender abuse and misinformation” used to attack 13 female politicians. About 78% of the attacks were directed at Harris.
The misinformation also included transphobic narratives, such as that Harris could not have risen to a position of power without being a secret man.
And racists, like those who falsely claim that Harris is “ineligible” to run for office because her parents are immigrants, or that she “exaggerates” her racial identity for political gain.
Roberta Braga, executive director of the Digital Democracy Institute of the Americas, warned Internet users to be on the lookout in the coming days for “lies and conspiracies” about Harris.
“Disinformation will be accompanied by gender-based attacks. And this will not be something new,” Braga said.
Nonwhite female candidates in the 2020 election were twice as likely as other candidates to be targets of misinformation, according to a report by the Washington-based Center for Democracy and Technology.
They were also four times more likely than white candidates to be subjected to violent abuse, the report added.
