Kamala Harris wearing 'audio earrings' is an old trick from presidential debate conspiracy theories

If you scrolled through your feed on X (fka Twitter) following the presidential debate between Donald Trump and Kamala Harris, you most likely stumbled upon posts claiming that Harris was wearing fancy ‘audio earrings.’ The posts alleged that she was being fed information through these earrings to give her an edge over Trump.

Well, as you might have expected, these posts have turned out to be nothing more than hogwash. Turns out Harris was wearing audio earrings from a company called Nova. Matter of fact, this isn’t even the first time we’re seeing such rumors. More on this later!

After closely looking at the side-by-side image shared by multiple accounts, it’s clear why some people might have been roped into believing this fabricated story. Here’s the comparison doing rounds on social media for reference:

At first glance, they might appear pretty similar. But if you look closely, the person wearing Nova’s H1 audio earrings (left) is also wearing actual earrings too, making it seem like the earrings Harris is wearing. In fact, Kate Kozuch, the person wearing the Nova H1 earrings in the comparison image being circulated, also took to Instagram to debunk the claims.

Well, then what earrings Harris was wearing during the debate? It didn’t long for people to figure it out. She had on Tiffany South Sea pearl earrings, as highlighted by a website that goes by the name What Kamala Wore. Here’s a high-res picture of those earrings:

Now for comparison, here’s a picture of the Nova H1 earrings:

Once you look at the two earrings, it’s clear that they both look nothing alike. It seems like the only reason why the conspiracy took off was because of the comparison image being cherry-picked to give the illusion of the earrings appearing similar to each other.

Sadly, it’s not the first time such conspiracy theories have done the rounds on social media. In 2020, The New York Times highlighted multiple instances where presidential candidates were accused of using earpieces, despite there being absolutely no base to these claims. For instance, in 2016, Hillary Clinton was accused of wearing an earpiece during her first debate again Trump. This rumor too was busted just as quickly as expected. 

Fast-forwarding to 2020, the Trump campaign also accused Joe Biden of wearing an earpiece. Again, the rumors were debunked just as quickly as they went viral. So the next time you see random posts accusing presidential candidates of wearing earpieces, you might want to wait for the fact-checkers to chime in before believing in what you see.

Featured image credits: Kamala Harris / X