Thursday, March 18, 2021

Biden and a faked(?) interview

Can anyone confirm whether the following truly happened?

The video below shows what appears to be a clumsy effort at altering video footage.  In the video, Joe Biden walks up to a scrum of reporters, most of whom are reaching out and pointing their microphones at Biden.  Biden approaches the reporters, answers a question or two while making random gestures, then turns and leaves.  But it seems that at least part of the video is a sham:  at one point, Biden's gesticulating hand interacts strangely with two microphones, and it looks as if the microphones have been painted into the video.  Why would someone do this?  Is this a sincere attempt at faking something about the video, or is this just a random prank that conservatives have seized upon and exaggerated?  Watch the video (it's short, O Short Attention Span People) and let me know what you think.

Memology 101, the channel that put up the above video, makes the following claim:

Washington Post's angle of the fake interview proves the reporters were not there as the microphone is far away from Biden hand's on the Post's angle while they are below his hands on the first angle. Both angles help prove each other are fake.

Memology 101 also leaves a pinned comment:

For those asking. Biden walking to the helicopter is real. The "reporters" being there? That's fake.

So the claim is that "the reporters were not there."  I think that, if we assume the above footage is, for lack of a better term, a "real fake," then the only claim that can be made is that two microphones got painted into the scene.  Could it be that the side-by-side comparison shows that the two video angles contradict each other in important ways?  Possibly.  But does anything in the above piece definitively prove that there were no reporters present?  I don't think so.  I don't think we can go that far.

Consider:  Joe Biden is on a steep slope to full-on dementia.  If he's actually talking to thin air, and not to a group of reporters, this means he has either memorized lines to say or improvised his words on the spot.  Sorry, but given Biden's deteriorating mental state, I don't think either option is feasible.  He's President Cue Card—a mumbler, bumbler, stumbler, and fumbler.

Some of the comments below the video darkly suggest that the whole thing has been Deepfaked.  That genuinely scares me.  Deepfake technology has evolved rapidly over the past couple of years; we're almost at a point where artifact-free simulacra are possible—just get a proper voice actor and let Deepfake tech do the rest.  The illusion doesn't have to hold up for a long time:  millions of people will see and be influenced by the initial chicane, and that's all it takes to sow chaos.  We're entering a truly ominous phase in media bamboozlement.



2 comments:

John Mac said...

Scary times, indeed. I'm not sure if this is faked or the motivation for doing so. But clearly, Biden is not all there. It's only going to get worse. And then we will have President Harris. Yikes!

John Mac said...

These guys say it is real. It is telling though that Biden is so iffy a simple interaction with the press leads to the question of whether he is demented or not.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w_QQ2xj-nwQ