The Twitter account for the highly successful “White Dudes for Harris” online rally, which raised over $4 million in donations for the Democrats’ Presidential candidate within hours, was suspended shortly after achieving this remarkable feat.
This unexpected suspension has caused concern among the rally’s organizers as the owner of the popular social media platform, Elon Musk, who is a self-proclaimed free speech absolutist and an avid Trump fanboy, continues to heavily criticize Harris, more often so than not, using false information.
BREAKING: X has SUSPENDED the White Dudes for Harris account (@dudes4harris) after it raised more than $4M for Kamala Harris.
— Brett Meiselas (@BMeiselas) July 30, 2024
This is the real election interference! pic.twitter.com/An8WKu1cnv
The suspension comes shortly after Elon Musk’s retweet of a deepfake AI video mocking Presidential hopeful Kamala Harris and the Democrats. The post, which arguably violates the rules of disinformation on Twitter, still remains unchecked and is still up on his account.
Elon making a deepfake AI of a political candidate in an attempt to influence an election is *literally illegal* and blatant election interference actually.https://t.co/Y8fWQQh7TH https://t.co/K6x7khMwo0
— Jules Suzdaltsev (@jules_su) July 27, 2024
Users on Twitter also encountered issues when attempting to follow her campaign account, @KamalaHQ, following Harris’ announcement of her presidential run.
X is rate limiting follows for @kamalaHQ pic.twitter.com/6bonIqWDPM
— Chris Skovron (@cskovron) July 22, 2024
@KamalaHQ, the official rapid response page for Harris’ campaign, greeted potential followers with a message indicating they had reached their “limit” and could not follow additional accounts.
This limitation message is typically employed to prevent spam or “rate limiting,” usually triggered when an account follows hundreds of others rapidly. However, in this instance, it appears to have been applied to Harris’ campaign account rather than the users.
An initial search by our Twitter account confirmed that @KamalaHQ was indeed limited, and although the issue was slowly resolved, it certainly raised suspicions of Election Interference from Musk and his platform.
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Elon Musk has been incredibly vocal about his support for Donald Trump and his intense dislike for just about anything Democrat, liberal or “woke.”
Musk is constantly critical of the Democrats and, in the wake of Joe Biden stepping down, even retweeted a post from former Republican candidate Vivek Ramaswamy, stating, “We’re not running against a candidate. We’re running against a system.”
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Following the announcement of Kamala Harris as the presidential candidate, he even tweeted a video of Harris stating her pronouns and describing her appearance for accessibility purposes, captioning the post, “Imagine 4 years of this….”
While stating your pronouns might be scary and too “woke” for the people in the far-right, Harris’ video, however, was taken out of context as she was describing herself to disability rights leaders and journalists, some of whom were visually disabled.
Imagine 4 years of this … https://t.co/gFwWAv15Qx
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) July 22, 2024
Elon Musk often claims to have bought Twitter because there was “no social media left for real free speech,” and while that may sound good on paper, there’s been a massive increase in misinformation and right-wing propaganda on Twitter in the last couple of years, alongside hateful racist and sexist discrimination.
Hey @elonmusk is this why you brought Andrew Tate back back onto twitter? pic.twitter.com/zCDYGYbBwZ
— David Leavitt 🎲🎮🧙♂️🌈 (@David_Leavitt) July 21, 2024
Just recently, Andrew Tate was seen publicly calling a person the N-word in response to the user’s criticism of Hulk Hogan on Elon Musk’s platform, and he did not seem to face any repercussions as such, with both his account and the tweet still live.
“White Dudes for Harris” Garnered Star-Studded Support and Donations.
The virtual YouTube event attracted significant contributions from notable figures, including the likes of J.J. Abrams, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Josh Groban, Sean Astin, Michael Kelly, Josh Gad, Jeff Bridges, and Mark Hamill.
Organizers of the event were shocked to find their Twitter account suspended shortly after the event. According to a notification from Twitter, the account was suspended “for violating our rules against evading suspension.” This justification, however, was met with criticism and concern from participants.
Mike Nellis, founder/CEO of digital advertising firm Authentic, who is one of the organizers of White Dudes for Harris, wrote, “We scared @elonmusk and @DonaldJTrumpJr so much tonight they suspended our account and won’t let us back in. These guys are running scared of the success we’ve had tonight, but we’re not going to quit.”
In a follow-up post, he added, “I ask this question seriously… are we the first white dudes to ever get suspended by @elonmusk’s Twitter? I think we are.”
In an update Tuesday morning, Nellis stated that while their tweets are back (@dudes4harris), their account remains suspended, and according to Twitter, their account is ‘permanently in read-only mode.’
Meanwhile, Mark Hamill, who participated in the call, tweeted, “In a little over 3 hours, the @dudes4harris Zoom call triggered $4M in donations for @KamalaHarris….Apparently, someone else was triggered too.”
The “White Dudes for Harris” rally reached a peak viewership of 150,000. Jeff Bridges expressed his excitement, saying, “I can see her being President. A woman president, man, how exciting.”
Vice Presidential hopefuls such as Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg and Minnesota Governor Tim Walz also participated. Filmmaker J.J. Abrams pledged $50,000, and NYU Professor Scott Galloway matched the pledge after a Star Wars-themed request from Mark Hamill.
The event drew inspiration from the successful “Black Women for Harris” rally the previous week and was followed by other fundraising events, including “White Women for Harris.”
If the Republicans can’t win by lying or starting rumors, they will cheat. The Republican party is a disgrace to the American forefathers, and Americans that gave their lives, for these cheaters and liars. They lost the meaning of the purpose of the great experiment, American Democracy.