Get your BS detectors working, people

He told a story about past English judges tolerating wife-beating. Minutes later, returning to his argument about how American permissiveness toward the abuse of women descends from centuries-old English permissiveness, he said this: pic.twitter.com/RxOYylfwz0

— Daniel Dale (@ddale8) January 2, 2020

Biden's claims about the roots of domestic violence in America can certainly be disputed -- I'm not sure if he has all of his old-England history correct -- but he certainly wasn't making some general argument that America is solely a country of European culture, or something.

— Daniel Dale (@ddale8) January 2, 2020

Biden opened by talking about how English common law in the 1300s allowed for husbands to beat their wives, and then said that we had inherited this “cultural problem.” Biden then talked at great length about his father’s teachings to him, his work in the Senate on domestic violence, and other related matters. 

Toward the end, Biden circled back to English common law, and said this: 

Folks, this is about changing the culture, our culture, our culture. It’s not imported from some African nation or some Asian nation. It’s our English jurisprudential culture, our European culture, that says it’s all right. 

The edited video removes that first sentence and the very last clause, so all you hear is this:

Our culture, our culture. It’s not imported from some African nation or some Asian nation. It’s our English jurisprudential culture, our European culture.

This is just a shot across the bow. Disinformation is the currency of Trump, the Trump campaign, Russians, and anyone else who feels the need to meddle in our elections. Since Donald Trump has made it abundantly clear that election meddling is welcome in 2020, expect this to be the norm, not the exception. I don't know who edited the video, I don't know what team they were playing on, and it doesn't really matter. What matters is that it captured the attention of social media influencers, who picked up the ball and ran with it before realizing they'd been duped. Many of them deleted their tweets and apologized for reacting, but many did not, even when confronted with the full context of Biden's remarks. 

Welcome to the disinformation decade. It's on us to minimize the impact, by taking care not to amplify or spread disinformation. Context matters. Truth matters. Deliberation matters. Don't let them win.