Elon Musk, the owner of X, and former independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. have both suggested on social media that Vice President Kamala Harris might seek to “shut down” X if the platform cannot be brought into alignment with government oversight.

Elon Musk and Robert F. Kennedy Jr. shared a clip from a 2019 CNN interview with Vice President Kamala Harris, which took place after a Democratic presidential primary debate. In the interview, Harris criticized social media platforms for “directly speaking to millions and millions of people without any level of oversight and regulation,” stating that such practices “have to stop.”

Kennedy interpreted Harris’ remarks, stating, “Translation: If they don’t police content to conform to government-approved narratives, they will be shut down,” reflecting his view on the implications of her statements from the five-year-old clip.

This week, a clip from Vice President Kamala Harris’s 2019 CNN interview went viral on X, with critics using it to argue that she might suppress free speech on social media platforms if she were elected president.

In the full interview, Harris advocated for the removal of then-President Trump’s Twitter account before Twitter rebranded as X due to its perceived negative societal impact. She remarked, “And when you’re talking about Donald Trump, he has 65 million Twitter followers, he has proven himself to be willing to obstruct justice just ask Bob Mueller. You can look at the manifesto from the shooter in El Paso to know that what Donald Trump says on Twitter impacts people’s perceptions about what they should and should not do.”

Harris concluded that Trump’s account “should be taken down” for violating the site’s terms of service.

Harris also discussed the necessity for government regulation of social media platforms to prevent influential figures, like Trump, from potentially having a negative impact on millions of users. She emphasized the need for uniform rules across platforms, stating, “And the bottom line is that you can’t say that you have one rule for Facebook and a different rule for Twitter. The same rule has to apply, which is that there has to be a responsibility placed on these social media sites to understand their power.”

Harris further asserted, “They are speaking to millions of people without any level of oversight or regulation. And that has to stop.”

Misinterpreting Harris’s comments as being directed at Elon Musk though the clip did not specify whom she was referring to Kennedy criticized her on X. He accused Harris of seeking to suppress free speech online if it doesn’t align with “government-approved narratives.”

In his post, Kennedy questioned, “Can someone please explain to her that freedom of speech is a RIGHT, not a ”˜privilege’?”

Early Tuesday morning, Musk shared Kennedy’s post, adding his own comment that the Democratic Party aims to “destroy free speech.”

Musk wrote, “This is what she actually believes. Free speech is the bedrock of democracy and the Democratic Party (Kamala is just a puppet) wants to destroy it.”