Blow up over maskless photo of Joe Biden

This photo of Joe Biden has been widely shared as proof the Democrat is a hypocrite. Not all is at it seems though.

A viral side-by-side photo comparison showing a picture of Joe Biden maskless on a jet and masked at a rally has been labelled “manipulated media” by Twitter.

A warning was placed on the post which links out to a Twitter page explaining why it was flagged.

“An image being shared of Joe Biden without a mask was taken by photographer Adam Schultz in November 2019 for a Vogue article, according to The Associated Press, Reuters and PolitiFact,” Twitter said on the page.

It shows Mr Biden appearing to fail to practise what he preaches on mask-wearing.

Actually, that photo on the left, of Mr Biden not wearing a mask during a plane flight, was taken in November of last year. Before the pandemic started.

Twitter used a hyperlink to combat the manipulated media that was allowed to stay up on its site.

The photo is from last year.

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The manipulative photo was shared by the Mr Trump’s former director of national intelligence Richard Grenell who served in the job from February to May.

According to CNN Mr Grenell was accused of politicising the role on numerous occasions in an attempt to help President Donald Trump.

Twitter’s fact checkers have tried to set the record straight for the people who actually click through to see how the media has been manipulated.

Twitter doesn’t actually have to do any of this since the law currently treats it as a platform not a publisher, so there’s no legal need for the company to try and make sure the things posted on its site are accurate.

Twitter, Facebook and other social media platforms were used to spread disinformation in the lead up to the 2016 election as well, and since then have faced increased scrutiny of how they can be exploited with potentially negative influences on democracy.

The post has been retweeted more than 20,000 times despite Twitter’s flag and another warning that appears when you try to retweet it.

This kind of thing is so inexcusable, irresponsible, and ultimately should be credibility-ruining to those who do it. It took me literally less than a minute to find (by Googling, of course) the original photo at @voguemagazine after I saw @KFILE's tweet. https://t.co/tfkPqZqzdt

— Jeryl Bier (@JerylBier) November 2, 2020

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Another warning tried to get people to read even one more bit of information before sharing the post.

“Help keep Twitter a place for reliable info,” the social media platform said ambitiously, encouraging users to “find out more before sharing.”

Twitter made the plea for users to “keep” the site a place for reliable info as bipartisan disinformation continues to spread on the platform in the lead up to the US election.

On Monday another post went viral purporting to show Mr Biden having a “senior moment” at a rally where he said a different state’s name to the one that appeared on the sign behind him.

The sign behind Mr Biden in the video had been digitally altered but more than a million people saw it before Twitter took it down.