In an absolutely astounding interview CBS’s Margaret Brennan conducted in July of 2023 with Lindsay Gorman, the two discussed a clip of Biden speaking to the National Association of Black Law Enforcement Officers and whether it was real or a deep fake video. Deep fakes are meant to look rea and convince the public of something untrue about the subject of them.
In this case, the clip of Biden speaking was so “off” that Brennan thought it was a deep fake. Particularly, she pointed to the fact that Biden didn’t appear to blink a single time in 17 second-long clip, making it look weird and fake.
In the clip, Biden, unblinking, says, “You can’t be pro-insurrection and pro-cop. You can’t be pro- insurrection and pro-democracy. You can’t be pro-insurrection and pro- American. Donald Trump lacked the courage to act. The brave women and men in blue all across this nation should never forget that.”
Gorman asked Brennan what she thought of it, and Brennan noted that Biden didn’t blink in the clip, using that to draw the inference that it could be a deepfake and that whatever program created it couldn’t create blinking. Gorman told her that it wasn’t a deep fake, but that it looked so weird that some speculated that the White House released it despite it not being real.
Gorman said, “This was actually a speech he gave to the National Association of Black Law Enforcement Officers. And it looks really like a deepfake. It has sort of a washed out look. He didn’t move very much, just like with the other ones. And, yes, he didn’t blink for the whole 17-second clip. And when this actually surfaced about a year ago, there were conspiracy theories and people thinking that this had to have been a deepfake, even though it came from the DNC’s own social media account and was later published by the White House itself.”
Gorman continued, “The reason that we can tell that this one is not a deepfake, we really need to rely on context and the source, first of all, coming out a full White House video, giving a speech and these were remarks that were delivered virtually, we’re not only at risk of seeing things that are false and thinking that they’re true, but actually seeing things that are true and thinking that they’re false. And that’s kind of the liar’s dividend, that in an information environment that — where we can’t tell what’s real and what’s not.”
Then, when Brennan called it a “liar’s dividend,” Gorman told her, “A liar’s dividend. That the liar can kind of take the advantage because the liar can just say, well, this – this — maybe this audio that you caught of me, this image that you took of me, that’s actually not true. It’s a – it’s just a fake. And it’s hard to prove whether something is actually real, not just whether something is – is fake. And – and this is really advantageous sort of to autocrats and to those who would sow doubt and discord in our information space.”