Sen. Kamala Harris (D-Calif.) dominated buzz surrounding the first Democratic presidential debate Thursday night after battling rivals on stage, but as the debate played out, a series of Twitter bots worked to amplify a far-right conspiracy about her online.
During the debate in Miami, apparent bots online amplified conspiracy theories on social media falsely claiming that the California Democrat, who is of Indian and Jamaican descent, is not black and is not a U.S. citizen.
“Kamala Harris is *not* an American Black. She is half Indian and half Jamaican. I'm so sick of people robbing American Blacks (like myself) of our history. It's disgusting. Now using it for debate time at #DemDebate2? These are my people not her people. Freaking disgusting,” Ali Alexander, a Trump-world personality, tweeted.
The tweet was retweeted by Donald Trump Jr., who ultimately removed the message from his page. However, Alexander’s tweet was soon copied word for word by a network of bot accounts researcher Josh Russell had previously identified.
Social media researcher Caroline Orr noted that a number of “suspect accounts” highlighted similar claims after Harris’s debate appearance.
