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Cheap-fakes Take Center Stage as US Readies for the 2024 Elections.

Social media platforms are being used to circulate deceptively edited videos seeking to show President Biden as mentally unfit for office.

Published June 25, 2024 at 5:04am by

Donald Trump, seeking to redefine his perceived weaknesses as strengths, is once again using misleading tactics to discredit his political opponent, President Joe Biden. This time, the tactic takes the form of "cheap fakes," deceptively edited videos circulating on social media that call into question Biden's fitness for office by taking his words and actions out of context.

While the Biden campaign has pushed back on these videos, the Trump campaign has leaned into them, attempting to redefine "cheap fakes" as "any unedited video of Joe Biden's cognitive decline." Samuel Woolley, a professor at the University of Texas, notes that this is a classic Trump tactic: redefining terms to fit his narrative, as he did with "fake news."

"Cheap fakes" are not a new phenomenon. The term was coined by misinformation researchers in 2019 to describe manually edited videos that use low-cost, easy-to-access tools to manipulate or take content out of context. While not as sophisticated as "deepfakes," which are created with AI technology, cheap fakes are effective because they are easy to create and share, and they play on existing beliefs and biases.

Numerous recent videos of Biden have been manipulated or taken out of context, including:

  • A video from a Los Angeles fundraiser claiming Biden froze on stage.
  • A video from the G7 summit in Italy claiming Biden wandered away from world leaders during a skydiving demonstration.
  • Edited clips from a D-Day anniversary event in France claiming Biden sat in an "imaginary chair" and had a bowel movement.

The Biden campaign has called out these videos and established a task force to address the issue. They have also highlighted Trump's own gaffes and awkward moments in response. However, the Trump campaign has pushed back, calling Biden's video response a "cheap fake" without evidence.

As the 2024 election approaches, it's crucial to be vigilant against these deceptive tactics and to fact-check information before sharing it.

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Read more: ‘Cheap fake’ videos, and the phrase itself, take 2024 election’s center stage