Expert pushes back against Biden White House ‘cheap fakes’ messaging

On Tuesday, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre doubled down that these videos were “cheap fakes,” which the Media Manipulation Case Book defines as “altered media” that does not require advanced technology, like “photoshopping (including face swapping), lookalikes, as well as speeding and slowing video.”

The term was used in some news articles as early as 2019, but there were significantly more this week following the videos on social media of Biden.

“It looks horrible because it is.”

— Heritage Foundation Researcher Jake Denton

“It’s also very insulting to the folks, the viewers who are watching it. And so we believe we have to call that out. We’ve been calling it ‘cheap fakes.’ That is something that came directly from the media outlets in calling it that, the fact-checkers … calling it that. And so we’re certainly going to be really, really clear about that as well. And calling it out from where we are, from where we stand,” Jean-Pierre told MSNBC’s Nicolle Wallace on Tuesday.

Not everyone is buying the explanation, however. This is all part of “election slogans and buzzwords,” according to Heritage Foundation tech researcher Jake Denton.

“It’s very clear what’s going on here,” Denton told Fox News Digital. “They’re trying to push a new term underneath the school of misinformation to try and pressure social media companies to take action on videos of this nature.”

The term “cheap fake” is also being used just a week before Biden is scheduled to debate former President Trump, the GOP front-runner in the general election.

“This kind of requires a ramp-up stage where you allege that something is a ‘cheap fake,’ or that it’s malicious in some way related to misinformation, and then you have essentially the evidence, the fact pattern, whatever, to go and push the social media companies with takedown requests, because it’s misinformation regarding an election. So to me, that’s kind of the seed that’s being planted here.”

Denton additionally labeled “misinformation experts” under the umbrella of “pseudo-science” born from “digital politics.” Failed academics who then try to rebrand themselves have found a home in this emerging area online, Denton said, at independent fact-check websites and organizations, and even media outlets.

“At the end of the day, there’s really not a lot of science to it,” Denton said. “They’re experts, but what are they really analyzing? There is truth that there’s a need for expertise in deepfake production, but when it comes to something like a cheap fake or just the broader term of misinformation, you’re largely just sifting through junk on social media and saying what’s real and what isn’t; it’s not really a very scientific or professional exercise.”