-1

I saw this video posted to Reddit the other day, depicting who was claimed to be Joe Biden interacting with 10 different families. The video is rather disturbing and uncomfortable, so I warn you before watching. Here is the video: https://i.imgur.com/BW6SOhC.gifv

Given the proliferation of Deep Fakes and the prevalence of misinformation, I wanted to know for sure, is this Joe Biden throughout the video, and is this video doctored in any way?

Edit: I understand the video was edited in such a way to disgust (for example, the lack of audio in the first scene removes the child's laughter as @Barry Harrison's answer reveals). What I am most interested in is can we be confident this video is unaltered throughout, or are we able to say "at 1:40, the hand is not Biden's" for example.

Evan Carroll
  • 28,401
  • 42
  • 129
  • 239
Jeff
  • 131
  • 5
  • 1
    Wondering about the downvotes, is this particular identification question off-topic? Or are the descriptions of the video I used problematic? Or is it something else? – Jeff Apr 29 '19 at 00:10
  • 6
    Not my downvote. I actually agree, the girl looks uncomfortable. But as with too many questions here on Skeptics.SE (IMO), this one asks one thing on the surface ("is the person in this video Joe Biden"), but actually with the way the question is asked the answer below ("yes") can now also be taken to affirm that "Joe Biden is molesting little girls and thinks he can get away with it". We do not know what transpired there, why the girl was uncomfortable, what Mr. Biden said or intended to do. I feel this is not scientific skepticism, but a way to add spin to something, which I dislike. – DevSolar Apr 29 '19 at 06:25
  • 1
    @DevSolar Thanks, I've tried to remove the spin from the question by removing from the title "trying to kiss and uncomfortably touch little girls?" (although now I worry if the title is too vague for a stack site) and changing the line "awkwardly talking to, attempting to kiss, and putting his hand over the chest of little girls" to "interacting with 10 different families". I've left the content warning because I do feel it's very disturbing (and I consider myself rather desensitized). Also should note there's 10 families (the video is nearly 2 minutes long), not just one girl. – Jeff Apr 29 '19 at 11:40
  • He's asking about deep fakes. Of course it's scientific skepticism and the downvotes are just reflective of the majority of the site's users being uncomfortable shedding poor light on the probable Dem nominee. – lly Mar 06 '20 at 07:55

1 Answers1

1

Part of the original video is available here at the 52:00 mark. I would consider C-SPAN, or the Cable-Satellite Public Affairs Network, to be credible. The video description is

Vice President Biden held a ceremonial swearing-in ceremony with newly-elected and re-elected senators. The event happens at the start of each Congress in the Old Senate Chamber. The official swearing-in ceremony took place earlier in the Senate chambers on the opening day of the 114th Congress.

Barry Harrison
  • 14,093
  • 4
  • 68
  • 101
  • Thanks! Do you have timestamps for the other families in the video or know if they're from other videos? Hearing the audio changes the context somewhat – Jeff Apr 29 '19 at 00:09
  • @Jeff I'm still looking into the other videos. I can't recognize the congresspeople and even when I eventually find out who they are, I can't always find the clip. I have seen a long tweet that basically compiled a lot of instances of similar stuff. – Barry Harrison Apr 29 '19 at 12:26
  • Given the recent Pelosi doctored vids, I was hoping there'd be an easier way to verify these videos. I guess the best we'll know for now is that the first part was real, but we haven't confirmed the other 9 parts yet. I think the problem going forward is that it'll always be too hard to verify vs how easy it is to fake – Jeff May 26 '19 at 13:28
  • The other 9 are zoomed in, etc. and I don't have enough context to identify the origin. – Barry Harrison May 27 '19 at 04:38