JOE BIDEN’S WITHDRAWAL as his party’s nominee in the US presidential race has given the world another hugely dramatic moment in this year’s election – and another deluge of speculative posts on social media about why he decided to do so.
It’s no surprise that many of those asking questions about such a dramatic moment are now sharing conspiracy theories and false claims about Biden and his possible successor, Kamala Harris.
We saw last week how the failed assassination of Donald Trump spawned a host of similar conspiracies and falsehoods about who was behind the attack on the former president and why it didn’t succeed.
“After a breaking news event like the attempted Trump assassination, where few facts are known straight away and speculation fills the void, the tendency for algorithms to push content based on emotion goes into overdrive,” the ISD’s Aoife Gallagher wrote for The Journal afterwards.
The same process is now playing out for Biden and Kamala Harris, with social media awash with conspiracies about the president’s state and falsehoods about Harris’ personal life.
One of the most prominent rumours to emerge on social media since Biden’s announcement on Sunday is a claim that he is dying, which was first on X but has since morphed into a broader conspiracy with several different strands.
The original claim centred on an allegation posted on X that Biden is “currently in hospice care” and that he is “unlikely to survive the night”, different versions of which began to emerge on Monday 22 July.
The primary source for that claim was a blue-ticked account called @GlobalPressCorp, which posted on Monday that a “verified source” told them it was true.
The claim was given additional credence by users on the platform because the account (which is no longer active on X) had claimed on 18 July that Biden would pull out of the race on Sunday – in other words, it predicted the news a full three days beforehand.
The original post was seen more than four million times before being deleted, and has racked up hundreds of thousands of additional views after being screengrabbed and re-shared by others.
In follow-up posts about the hospice claim, the @GlobalPressCorp account referred back to its 18 July prediction about Biden pulling out of the race and said the news was coming from the same source, and pledged to delete its account if it was wrong.
Although the @GlobalPressCorp account is no longer active, other versions of the claim are still circulating on X and are being re-shared on other social media platforms.
Similar claims have appeared on Facebook, where they have been viewed and re-shared thousands of times in conspiracy groups and on pages that support Donald Trump’s campaign to be re-elected.
Posts on the platform in the 24 hours after the original claim have referred to claims that the Democrats made a “tough decision to place” Biden in a hospice following his Covid diagnosis, while others have referred to “unconfirmed reports” that he is dying.
In the hours since, different versions of the conspiracy began to emerge.
On 23 July, another claim on X alleged that Biden was being murdered by paxlovid, an anti-viral Covid-19 drug which is manufactured by Pfizer.
The claim was accompanied by a legitimate letter by his physician that says the US president has been administered ten doses of the medicine after he was diagnosed with the virus earlier in July.
It plays into conspiracies around Pfizer, which is frequently the target of anti-vax campaigners and conspiracy theorists because of its role in developing a Covid vaccine.
However, it ignores a statement by Biden’s physician that the president’s Covid symptoms have “almost resolved completely” and that he is performing his presidential duties.
Biden has also said that he will give an announcement from the White House on Wednesday night about how he will “finish the job for the American people” in his final months as president.
Another, more prominent conspiracy about Biden’s impending death has even gamed out how the next few days will play out.
A post by far-right political activist and internet personality Laura Loomer, originally shared on X but which has spread to Facebook, claims that “final preparations are being made” for a transfer of power.
Loomer attributes Biden’s apparent demise to a “medical emergency” on Air Force One on 5 July – though the occurrence of such an emergency has already been debunked - and says that Kamala Harris will become the president “very soon”.
“Biden has been dying, and he is dying rather quickly. This is why Kamala flew to Delaware today [Monday] and why Biden’s White House Chief of Staff Jeff Zients called for an emergency meeting and call with all White House staff today,” she wrote.
The post remains on X at the time of writing, and has been viewed almost 20 million times.
The claim that Kamala Harris is set to take over in the coming days is not the only falsehood to have emerged about the vice president since she emerged as the Democratic frontrunner after Biden’s withdrawal.
Multiple posts on X have shared a doctored image of Harris beside Jeffrey Epstein in an attempt to connect her to child sexual abuse.
However, the claim has repeatedly been debunked by fact-checkers who have showed that the original image – which shows Harris with her husband Douglas Emhoff – has been manipulated to include Epstein’s face.
The original image was taken in 2015, and is owned by Getty Images; it was taken at event in Los Angeles.
Another series of viral posts have incorrectly claimed that Harris is not an American citizen and is not eligible to become president – a claim which harks back to what’s known as the Obama ‘birther’ conspiracy, which falsely suggested the same thing.
Versions of the claim about Harris have been seen millions of time across X and Facebook, and occasionally contain purported images of her birth cert.
Its proponents point to the fact that Harris’ mother was a cancer researcher from India and that her father was an economist from Jamaica, and incorrectly suggest that as the parent of non-citizens, Harris cannot become president.
However, Harris was born in the US and is a natural-born US citizen having been born there, which therefore makes her eligible to become president.
Harris has also been accused of not being black, with posts online containing images claiming that she has light skin and that she is ‘pretending’ to be black.
“A reminder that @KamalaHarris isn’t black. She’s Indian American. She pretends to be black as part of the delusional, Democrat DEI quota,” reads one post on X, which has been seen more than 2.5 million times.
To be clear: Harris’ father was born in Jamaica and is black, while her mother is Indian – which makes her both black and Indian.
Her biography on the White House website says this, and Harris has said that she identifies with the heritage of both of her parents.
“It’s important to label these narratives and lies as what they are: an attempt to undermine a powerful woman’s public service because of her gender, her background, her skin color,” Nina Jankowicz of the disinformation watchdog American Sunlight Project told the AFP news agency.
“I challenge anyone who opposes Harris’s candidacy to engage in a substantive debate on the merits of her policies and track record, rather than calling her disgusting names.”
The Journal’s FactCheck is a signatory to the International Fact-Checking Network’s Code of Principles. You can read it here. For information on how FactCheck works, what the verdicts mean, and how you can take part, check out our Reader’s Guide here. You can read about the team of editors and reporters who work on the factchecks here.
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