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Trace the Information: Joe Bite’em: Did the President of the United States bite a baby?

SKILL: Trace the Information

DIFFICULTY: Challenging

SUBJECT(S): Politics/Current Events

Students will do a reverse image search to learn that an image showing US President Joe Biden biting a baby circulating on social media is real, but that some social media posts are misrepresenting the incident.

Related Lesson

CTRL-F Lesson 4: Trace the Information

Link to Example

Tweet
"Photograph deptics US President Biden biting a baby in a turkey costume"

Background

As a prominent political figure, Joe Biden has been the subject of many fabricated images online. With numerous artificial intelligence (AI) programs that people can use to create images that look shockingly photorealistic, it can be difficult to tell what’s real and what’s fake.

Cute aggression is a documented psychological phenomenon wherein individuals feel compelled to squeeze or bite things they perceive to be cute, without the desire to cause real harm.



About the Example

If you cannot access X, click here for a screenshot of the post that you can share with your students, and here and here for the images contained in the post.

This post, shared by an X.com (formerly Twitter) user, claims that US President Joe Biden bit a baby dressed like a turkey at a Halloween event held at the White House, leaving a mark on his leg. Thankfully, the post clarifies that the baby’s mother confirmed her infant is ‘going to be okay’. 

At first glance, it’s tough to tell whether the image is real, or has been fabricated using Photoshop or AI. Because it is impossible to tell for certain if an image is fake just by looking at it, we’ll have to do a search to see what we can find.

There are two ways to do this. A reverse image search of the picture of Joe Biden biting a baby shows articles from a number of outlets including Fox News, The Mirror, and TMZ, which might indicate that it’s real. However, if we research these sources using Wikipedia, we find that these outlets have mixed reputations, and that it may be better to trade up to more trustworthy sources by doing a keyword search. 

A keyword search of terms summarizing the claim and image (‘Joe Biden biting baby) returns results from BBC and Newsweek, which reveals that Joe Biden did in fact bite not one, but three babies, though both articles describe the incidents as ‘playful’.

Lastly, a reverse image search of the picture of the bite mark returns results from stock image websites, which tells us the image is unrelated to the events described in the post. This tells us that the images, while real, are unrelated, and the post paints an inaccurate picture: Joe Biden did in fact bite a baby, but did not cause them any injuries.



Activities 

  1. Show students this post and have them summarize the claims.
  2. Have students do a reverse image search of both of the images in the post. This will bring up a number of articles from sources with mixed reputations, including Fox News and The Mirror.
  3. Have your students do a keyword search using relevant terms like ‘Joe Biden biting baby’. This will bring up articles from reputable news sources like BBC and Newsweek.
  4. Have your students do a reverse image check of the image of a bite mark, which reveals it actually comes from a stock photo website. Guiding questions:
    1. Is the claim made by the X.com user mostly true, mostly false, or somewhere in between? How did you decide?
    2. Why might the person who posted this information have spread misinformation about US President Joe Biden?
    3. Why might someone distort the truth instead of completely fabricating a false story?


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