Fake News: Joe Biden NOT Appointed As Head Of TSA

Fact Check

  • by: Maarten Schenk
Fake News: Joe Biden NOT Appointed As Head Of TSA

Was Joe Biden appointed as the head of the TSA? No, that's not true: the story was made up by a satire website mocking Biden's current issues with alleged innapropriate touching during public events. The satirical article went quite viral and was copied by several other sites who failed to mention they took it from a humor website.

The story originated from an article published by The Babylon Bee on April 5, 2019 titled "Joe Biden Appointed As Head Of TSA" (archived here) which opened:

WASHINGTON, D.C.--Amid a flurry of accusations of inappropriate touching and crowding people's personal space leveled at former vice president Joe Biden, President Trump announced Friday that Biden is his appointment to the Transporation Security Administration.

Biden will be tasked with showing TSA agents how to violate people's personal space and privacy in their daily groping of American citizens.

Users on social media only saw this title, description and thumbnail:

Joe Biden Appointed As Head Of TSA

WASHINGTON, D.C.--Amid a flurry of accusations of inappropriate touching and crowding people's personal space leveled at former vice president Joe Biden, President Trump announced Friday that Biden is his appointment to the Transporation Security Administration.Biden will be tasked with showing TSA agents how to violate people's personal space and ...

But "The Babylon Bee" comes with following dislaimer on every page:

The Babylon Bee is Your Trusted Source For Christian News Satire.

At least three websites copied the story from The Babylon Bee without mentioning it was satire:

Joe Biden Appointed As Head Of TSA - SGT Report

from The Babylon Bee: WASHINGTON, D.C.-Amid a flurry of accusations of inappropriate touching and crowding people's personal space leveled at former vice president Joe Biden, President Trump announced Friday that Biden is his appointment to the Transporation Security Administration. Biden will be tasked with showing TSA agents how to violate people's personal space and privacy ...

Joe Biden Appointed As Head Of TSA

Via Babylon Bee WASHINGTON, D.C.-Amid a flurry of accusations of inappropriate touching and crowding people's personal space leveled at former vice president Joe Biden, President Trump announced Friday that Biden is his appointment to the Transporation Security Administration. Biden will be tasked with showing TSA agents how to violate people's personal space and privacy in...

Joe Biden Appointed As Head Of TSA - The Babylon Bee

WASHINGTON, D.C.-Amid a flurry of accusations of inappropriate touching and crowding people's personal space leveled at former vice president Joe Biden, President Trump announced Friday that Biden is his appointment to the Transporation Security Administration. Biden will be tasked with showing TSA agents how to violate people's personal space and privacy in their daily groping...

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  Maarten Schenk

Maarten Schenk is the co-founder and COO/CTO of Lead Stories and an expert on fake news and hoax websites. He likes to go beyond just debunking trending fake news stories and is endlessly fascinated by the dazzling variety of psychological and technical tricks used by the people and networks who intentionally spread made-up things on the internet.

Read more about or contact Maarten Schenk

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