Biden’s Lack of Blinking Leads Critics to Cry Deepfake
There’s no shortage of deepfaked videos out there purporting to show US politicians doing things they didn’t do, but now there are a handful of real videos critics swear are fake. In a recent example, users on social media and right-wing pundits at Newsmax and OAN tried to claim this 17-second video of President Joe Biden speaking about the January 6 attacks on the capitol was a deepfake. The rationale? Odd lighting and Biden’s odder refusal to blink.
“You can’t be pro-insurrection and pro-American.” —@JoeBiden pic.twitter.com/ufJxWPruj4
— The Democrats (@TheDemocrats) July 26, 2022
Biden’s facial expressions in the video definitely look, well, weird, but the president looks borderline non-human in many videos. The blinking argument doesn’t hold up anymore, in part, because deepfake technology already has the ability to make fake faces blink. The White House also released a longer version of the video that shows Biden blinking, eventually. Multiple fact-checkers have proven the video is genuine, but the sudden viral conspiracy shows how the uncanny valley of deepfake tech can muddy the water, especially for people with irregular facial expressions.
