[imagesource: Joe Raedle/Getty]
This story is about Twitter and the President of the United States, but thanks to the outcome of the last US presidential election, it looks a little different to what we became accustomed to in the four years of Donald Trump’s reign.
Nope, President Joe Biden didn’t tweet something weird or offensive, but he has been the subject of countless tweets questioning whether or not he really answered a reporter’s question on the South Lawn of the White House on Tuesday.
Some would also like to know if he’s still alive, and if not, is there a body double doing the rounds pretending to be him?
Welcome to another bizarre conspiracy theory.
Via Mashable, misinformation has spread like wildfire online, on Twitter and a few other sites, suggesting that Biden used a green screen and was “CGI’d” into the video to appear as if he was outside the White House with reporters.
Let’s start with the video that’s causing some people to freak out:
Reporter: “Do you have any plans to travel to the southern border?”
President Biden: “Not at the moment.” pic.twitter.com/Sw5oIj5vKf
— The Hill (@thehill) March 16, 2021
Now a word from the people freaking out and why:
Watch Joe Biden‘s hand relative to the microphone. I can’t tell if this video is authentic, but it’s clearly made on green screen. So if it is authentic, things have gotten worse than we realize https://t.co/CeK9SAZHuC
— SAVE CALIFORNIA 🇺🇸 (he/ho/hum) (@quirkyhandle) March 17, 2021
EMBRACE DEBATE: Is Joe Biden in front of a green screen in this video? pic.twitter.com/JWh2het2BF
— HARD FACTOR (@HardFactorNews) March 17, 2021
This one is also utter trash, but is useful for our purposes because it’s a close-up of the moment that everyone is saying proves the green screen theory:
Joe Biden is faking a interview-moment with fake reporters using green screen. Look at this microphone that is on the wrong side of his hand! Wow this is hilarious! https://t.co/fX7MYhjTn0 pic.twitter.com/6bVD7qUG1F
— Karina Rieber-Mowinckel (@KarinaMowinckel) March 17, 2021
These good people tried to restore sanity by putting effort into proving how silly this all is:
That large, grey microphone is actually further to the right of Biden’s hands, not in front of them.
There are multiple videos of the exchange taken from other angles as well as images.
Obviously, there’s no green screen or CGI at play.
And, yes, Biden is alive and real… pic.twitter.com/9pF3C9RF8d
— Shayan Sardarizadeh (@Shayan86) March 17, 2021
for all the people saying this is green screen or CGI, it’s just an illusion because of the camera distortion here’s a side by side of an alternate angle where you can see how far apart the mics are and one is clearly behind the other pic.twitter.com/U7orOX42MA
— Aesthetic Degen (@Aesthetic_Degen) March 17, 2021
And finally, a word from the person who was holding the supposedly fake microphone:
I was the one holding the lighter-colored fuzzy microphone and thus literally in front of @POTUS on the South Lawn. It’s all real. Who actually believes this ‘faked moon landing’ type nonsense and more importantly who is spreading it? https://t.co/9V3t0oqDz6
— Steve Herman (@W7VOA) March 17, 2021
In answer to the question posed by Herman:
The video blew up on the r/Conspiracy subreddit. QAnon forums spread the theory. Former Trump administration official Sebastian Gorka shared his own version of the conspiracy, saying perhaps it was the microphones that were “photoshopped” into the image.
MMA legend Tito Ortiz and retired MLB star Aubrey Huff, both athletes who are known to dabble in right-wing conspiracy theories, shared the green screen speculation to hundreds of thousands of their Twitter followers.
In short, Biden was actually speaking outside the White House in front of a real group of reporters on March 16, 2021.
Until the next insane theory…
[source:mashable]
