Old Clip Shared to Falsely Claim That Kamala Harris Said ‘X Should be Shut Down’

Her statement is being shared without the full context.

Fact-Check: Harris did not say that X should be shut down.

(Source: The Quint) 

A video showing the Vice President of the United States of America (USA) Kamala Harris giving an interview is being shared on social media.

What did she say?: Harris said, "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."

Who shared it?: American politician Robert F Kennedy shared this post on his official X page. He claimed that Harris was speaking about businessman Elon Musk in the viral clip.

An archive of the post can be found here.

(Source; X/Screenshot) 

(Archives of similar claims can be found here and here.)

Is this true?: The claim is false.

• The video is from 2019 and shows Harris talking to CNN host Jake Tapper post a Democratic primary debate, debating the removal of then-President Donald Trump's account from X formerly known as Twitter, and the importance of holding social media companies more accountable.

• She was not speaking about Musk. This video predates his takeover of the social media platform.

What we found: We divided the video into multiple keyframes and ran a Google reverse image search on some of them.

• We came across a short clip of an interview by CNN on archival website WayBack Machine from October 2019 featuring Vice-President Harris.

• It was the same portion as the viral video on the website. We noted that Harris spoke about Trump, in context of X suspending his official account.

Harris supported the suspension of Trump's X account in 2019.

(Source: Wayback Machine/Screenshot) 

• Similarly, we conducted a keyword search and found a transcript of the same interview on CNN's website.

• The host had asked Harris, "So, one of the topics that you chose to talk a lot about, especially confronting Senator Warren on was your push, your call for Twitter to suspend the account of President Trump. Why was that important?"

• To this question, she replied stating her support to suspend Trump's X account.

Excerpt from the October 2019 interview which Harris gave to CNN.

(Source: CNN Transcripts/Screenshot)

Conclusion: An old video is being shared to falsely claim that Harris said that X will be shut down.

(Not convinced of a post or information you came across online and want it verified? Send us the details on WhatsApp at 9540511818 , or e-mail it to us at [e-mail] and we'll fact-check it for you. You can also read all our fact-checked stories here.)