Joe Biden is the real US president and not a computer-generated image, Reuters and AP have declared in fact-checks, after the presidential seal was blurred in one video that came from the Democratic National Committee (DNC).
Fact-checks of online commentary about Monday’s signing of the $1.2 trillion infrastructure bill were the top Twitter trend on Friday morning. They addressed the questions and speculation about why the great seal of the US was blurred in one particular bit of footage.
“Claims that Biden event to sign a bipartisan bill used CGI or that he is not the real US president are baseless,” Reuters said in their fact-check.
As an example of the false claim, Reuters cited a tweet by Siraj Hashmi, who had tweeted “The presidential seal is blurred because Joe Biden isn’t really the president.” Hashmi is an independent journalist and frequent online satirist based in DC.
The video that generated controversy was posted by Vice President Kamala Harris on her personal Twitter account, rather than the official one. Harris used the video originally tweeted out by the Democratic Party, though it did not give credit.
The DNC had to blur the seal to comply with a federal statute governing the use of presidential symbols in campaign materials (18 U.S. Code § 713), the fact-checkers said, citing a party spokesperson.
The statute bans displaying the presidential seal or its likeness in a manner that could create a “false impression of sponsorship or approval by the Government of the United States or by any department, agency, or instrumentality thereof.”
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