CLAIM: A photo shows President Joe Biden touching a child inappropriately below the waist.
AP’S ASSESSMENT: Altered photo. The photo was digitally altered to make it appear as if Biden’s hands were under the child’s shirt. The original photo, which was taken by an Associated Press photographer in 2021, shows the child stretching their shirt to show the president, who is pointing at the shirt in return.
THE FACTS: Social media users are sharing a manipulated photo to suggest Biden inappropriately touched a child below the waist.
The altered photo appears to show Biden kneeling in front of a child, with his hands underneath the kid’s gray shirt. The photo was shared on Instagram on Sunday with a caption above the photo that reads, “This is what people ‘voted’ for?”
Social media users have also shared the photo on other platforms, including Twitter, in the last week.
However, the image was digitally altered. The original photo was taken by an AP photographer on Oct. 15, 2021, while Biden was visiting the Capitol Child Development Center in Hartford, Connecticut.
In the original, the child is stretching their top to show the president, and Biden is pointing at the shirt. A comparison of the two images shows the version circulating on social media has been altered to move the child closer to Biden, and another child standing in the background against a fence has been edited out.
A watermark faintly visible on the doctored photo is the name of a Twitter user who regularly posts altered videos that are satirical. They shared the altered image on Twitter in December 2022.
C-SPAN also captured video of the moment the photo was taken, and confirms Biden never touched the child in the way the edited image suggests. The footage shows Biden talking to the children at the playground and later giving the child in the photo a hug.
During Biden’s visit, he spoke about investing in child care and other social safety net programs, emphasizing their importance to keeping America competitive in the global economy, according to AP reporting.