Fact Check: False claims about fake US President in Joe Biden face mask go viral
A video claiming that a person pretending to be the US president by wearing a mask of Joe Biden’s face has gone viral.
By Sibahathulla Sakib Published on 27 July 2024 6:55 PM IST
Claim: A viral video shows a fake US president in Joe Biden face mask as the real Joe Biden is dead.
Fact: The claim is false. The original video was edited to make it look like Joe Biden is wearing a mask.
Hyderabad: As the US Presidential Election draws near, vice president Kamala Harris officially declared her candidacy for the presidential race on July 27. US President Joe Biden, citing a decline in health, has ended his campaign and endorsed Harris. Amid debates regarding the president’s health, a video claiming that a person pretending to be the US president by wearing a mask of Joe Biden’s face has gone viral.
The clip appears to show the skin on Biden’s neck folding in the manner of a plastic mask when he scratches it.
An X user shared the video with the caption: “News is spreading in America that Biden is dead. This is a fake Biden. You can see the mask in this video. Can this happen?”
Fact Check
NewsMeter found that the claim is false. The video has been edited purposely to give that impression.
Firstly, we confirmed US president Joe Biden’s health status. A report by the New York Post on July 25 quoted Biden’s physician, Dr Kevin O’Connor, who defended Biden’s ‘excellent’ mental acuity and denied any conditions like Parkinson’s.
Next, to verify the video’s authenticity, we did a reverse image search, which led us to an X post with the same video dated April 13, 2023.
Therefore, this showed that the video is old and unrelated to recent events.
Additionally, we found that in the last second of the video, the inscriptions ‘Belfast, North’ and ‘Tuesday’ are visible. Belfast is the capital city and principal port of Northern Ireland.
A keyword search revealed a report by NPR confirming that Joe Biden made a three-day visit to Ireland in April 2023.
Upon further investigation, we found the unedited original video of the viral clip on the YouTube channel Factbased Videos. The nine-minute video is titled ‘Remarks: Joe Biden Meets With Embassy Staff and Firefighters at Dublin Airport - April 12, 2023.’
We found the viral visual at the 5:06 mark in the original clip, where Joe Biden is seen scratching his neck.
The fire station’s red colour and Biden’s blue suit are very bright. The comparison shows that in the viral clip, the contrast has been altered, exaggerating skin folds and creating the false appearance of a mask.
Hence the claim that the US president is an imposter in a Joe Biden mask is false. The viral video’s high contrast makes Biden’s skin folds stand out, but this does not indicate he is wearing a mask. The original video from April 2023 confirmed it is indeed Joe Biden and the altered video quality led to the false claim.
