Kamala Harris’ Biggest Battle? The Misinformation Minefield
President Trump came under fire for his re-hashing of an old smear campaign when he claimed California senator Kamala Harris didn’t meet the citizenship requirements to be Vice President.
If it sounded familiar, it’s because Trump tried, and some would say succeeded, in sowing doubt of Barack Obama’s eligibility back in 2011, goading President Obama to release his birth certificate, which he did.
A YouGov poll from 2017 revealed that 42% of Republican voters still believed Obama was born in Kenya. With Obamacare, the number of people without medical insurance had fallen to an all-time low (as of 2017), 24% of Democrats believed it had risen.
When power is up for grabs, what is perceived to be true, or at least ambiguous, is more important than what is accurate, as Kamala Harris is already finding out.
“67% of adults consume news via social media”
Pew Research Centre
Dr Jim Taylor is an author, speaker and consultant and has a background in the psychology of education, parenting and sport.
In his 2019 an article published in Psychology Today, he says: “Perception is not reality, but, admittedly, perception can become a person’s reality (there is a difference) because perception has a potent influence on how we look at reality. Think of it this way. Perception acts as a lens through which we view reality.
“Our perceptions influence how we focus on, process, remember, interpret, understand, synthesize, decide about, and act on reality. In doing so, our tendency is to assume that how we perceive reality is an accurate representation of what reality truly is,” he explains.
So, if someone perceives something to be true, to them, it is true, which explains why people believe certain types of information, even though factual evidence would suggest something different.
A study by the Pew Research Centre in 2017 showed that two-thirds of the 4,971 adults (67%) consume some of their news via social media. A 2019 study, again by Pew, revealed a median of 28% who said social media was a very important news source.
The spread of fake news and cyber propaganda has turned what can be an excellent information platform into a playground for bots, data trolls and companies harnessing the mass reach of sites such as Facebook and Twitter for their own needs.
“Sixteen-percent of voters are still undecided, plan to support a third party, or won’t vote”
Reuters, July 2020
There have been many claims and counter-claims made about Kamala Harris in mainstream media and on social networking sites, and as we’ve seen, unfounded or skewed information can have a lasting impact on people’s perceptions.
Fact-checking websites Snopes, FactCheck.org, and PolitiFact, have numerous Harris related stories on their websites, going over the fine-print to extract the facts from the fiction. Additionally, Media Bias Fact Check rates all of these sites as “least biased” with “very few loaded words” and says “reporting is factual.”
Although you could delve into a wormhole with the fact-checking the website of the fact-checking websites, Media Bias Fact Check is funded by user donations and third-party advertising. The editor, Dave Van Zandt, is listed on the site as a “non-affiliated voter” and has studied bias in the media for 25 years.
In November 2019, market and consumer data company Statista polled 3,766 voters in six “swing-states.” Fifteen-percent of people were recorded as being “somewhat persuadable” or “persuadable”. A poll by Reuters in July 2020 has undecided, third-party, or non-voters at 16%.
Despite the vast majority of voters seemingly having made their minds up and Joe Biden having a lead over Trump (at the time of writing), US presidential elections have been close-run things in the past. In 2000, George W. Bush beat Al Gore by five electoral votes, and in 2004, the same man won by 35 votes, defeating John Kerry.
So, here are some claims, and the credibility of those claims made by, or about Kamala Harris.
“She doesn’t meet the requirements” to be Vice President
A good place to start, on 13th August 2020, the president of the United States casually repeated a claim made in Newsweek (who has since issued an apology) that Harris didn’t meet the requirements to be Vice President, the claim was echoed by accounts on Facebook.
We’ve seen this type of comment get traction before, despite it being common knowledge that Harris does meet the requirements, at least 35 years old, a natural-born citizen, a resident in the US for 14 years and has never served as president before.
The claim is false, according to FactCheck.org (as well as many, many other sources).
Harris said 18–24 year-olds are “stupid”.
A Facebook post by ForAmerica, an account with over seven million followers, posted a 19-second video which was taken from a thirty-minute keynote address Harris gave to the Ford Foundation in May 2014 in which it was claimed she called 18–24 year-olds “stupid.”
Historically, left-leaning ideas resonate more with young people, so criticism of this demographic by a potential Democratic vice-president would be seen as an attack on the party’s voters, or potential voters.
However, the Facebook post, which has over 1,500 comments and 6,000 reactions, has captured a small part of the interview and in doing so, has removed the context of which the words were spoken.
Because of this, Snopes has deemed the claim to be a mixture of true and false. Harris did utter the words, but all context was removed from the broader point of what she was making. The video of the full speech has the context followed by the comment starting at around 16:30.
Snopes deems the claim to be a “mixture of true and false”, but with a heavy emphasis on the lack of context given.
Due to Trumps zero-tolerance policy “there are still nearly 2,600 children who are separated from their parents”.
Harris claimed that 2,600 migrant children were separated from their families during a press conference at the US Capitol in July 2018 (about 50 seconds into the linked video).
She focused on the Trump administrations zero-tolerance policy on people who crossed the border into the US illegally, resulting in children being separated from their families.
The deputy assistant secretary for preparedness and response at the US Health and Human Services Department, Chris Meekins, testified in a court hearing in 13th July 2018 that 2,551 children aged five and up were in government custody.
According to Politico, it was the first time someone from the Trump administration went on record with an exact figure, the figure which was consistent with Harris’ claim of “nearly 2,600.”
PolitiFact rated the statement as “true”, with no significant information missing.
Harris said she accepted a jobs offer from a “racist” and a “rapist”.
The claim was made about Harris after her selection as Joe Biden’s running mate for the 2020 presidential elections. A graphic with Harris’ face accompanied by the text was shared on social media.
Conservative radio show host and commentator Larry Elder shared the image on Facebook (who have since marked it as ‘false information’) to his 300,000 followers, the post has garnered 1,000 comments, 7,000 shares and 11,000 reactions.
Harris, around 58 minutes into, the Democratic presidential debate in June 2019, said: “I do not believe you are a racist.”
The claim about Harris believing Biden was a rapist was made by the Chicks on the Right radio show and podcast. The show has over a million Facebook followers, just under 100,000 Twitter followers and just over 230,000 Instagram followers.
But, Biden hadn’t been accused of rape, several women accused him of making them feel uncomfortable with unwanted physical contact. The Hill reports Harris as saying “I believe them and I respect them being able to tell their story and having the courage to do it”.
FactCheck.org say that Harris has not used the words “racist” or “rapist” to describe Biden.
Harris’ birth certificate says she is “Caucasian”.
As many people have commented, if successful, Harris would be the first-ever female vice president to come from a black or South Asian background, her father is Jamaican, and her mother is Indian.
Former TV judge, Judge Joe Brown, tweeted an image of Harris’ purported birth certificate to his 30,000 followers. The claim is that Harris’ parents identified her as “caucasian” when she was born.
But, as the image clearly states, the word “caucasian” is listed under “colour or race of mother” who was born in India, so Harris herself isn’t listed as “caucasian.”
Snopes rates this claim as false.
Harris said she could “ban assault weapons”.
It was claimed on Facebook that Harris wanted people to surrender their guns and would sign an executive order allowing police to come to people’s homes and remove them.
Conservative commentator Ben Shapiro repeated this to his 7.2 million Facebook followers with the post receiving 40,000 shares and a further 275,000 views on YouTube.
The claims appear to be based on her CNN Town Hall pledge from April 2019 where she said she would take executive action after 100 days if the US Congress failed to pass gun safety laws.
Specifically, she wants gun dealers who sell more than five guns to one person in a year and fail to conduct background checks to have their licence revoked by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.
Harris’ original statement begins at 1.18 in the video.
The claim “Kamala Harris wants to ban assault weapons” is rated false by PolitiFact.
The US presidential elections take place on Tuesday 3rd November, with Biden and Harris going up against Trump and Mike Pence.
