No, this photo doesn’t show Biden touching a child inappropriately

Social media users are claiming to have photographic evidence of President Joe Biden touching a child inappropriately. But the image is altered.

A May 13 Instagram post shared a photo of Biden kneeling in front of a child and appearing to touch the child inappropriately. Text on the photo reads, "This is what people ‘voted’ for?"

This post was flagged as part of Meta’s efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram.)

A reverse-image search revealed the photo is altered.

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The original photo shows Biden kneeling in front of the child and pointing at the child’s T-shirt, which had an American flag on it. The photo was taken by The Associated Press during Biden’s October 2021 visit to the Capitol Child Development Center in Hartford, Connecticut.

In a video of the interaction, available on C-SPAN, the child is seen walking up to Biden and showing off the tee. Biden kneels down to talk to the child and points at the shirt’s American flag design.

This is not the first time a photo has been deceptively altered to accuse Biden of malfeasance. PolitiFact has previously debunked these claims.

We rate the claim that this photo shows Biden touched a child inappropriately Pants on Fire!