What RedFlag saw in Anthony Weiner's 2011 photo denial
← All articles · By the RedFlag team · September 26, 2026
In late May 2011, a lewd photo was posted from Congressman Anthony Weiner's Twitter account. In this CBS interview he deflects: his account was hacked, and he can't say “with certitude” whether the photo is of him. RedFlag is not a lie detector — it measures where a speaker's voice and face diverge from their own baseline and leaves the interpretation to you.
The public record is settled. On June 6, 2011 Weiner held a press conference and admitted: “The picture was of me, and I sent it.” He resigned from Congress ten days later. That makes this a rare clip where we know how the statement turned out — and can look honestly at what the measurable signals did.
The analyzed video
RedFlag's analysis of the clip. The screen turns red during flagged moments, a green bar marks stretches within normal range, and the counter climbs as each flag is caught.
Overlay rendered from the analyzer's own output for this clip (same pipeline as the app's capture mode). Original clip: YouTube ↗.
What RedFlag flagged
Across the clip, RedFlag flagged 12 moments totalling 1 minute 25 seconds. Each flagged episode lasts at least 3 seconds; shorter blips are dropped as measurement noise.
| # | Timestamp | Length |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | 0:22 – 0:25 | 3s |
| 2 | 0:30 – 0:38 | 8s |
| 3 | 0:52 – 1:04 | 12s |
| 4 | 1:38 – 1:42 | 4s |
| 5 | 2:09 – 2:18 | 10s |
| 6 | 3:27 – 3:40 | 14s |
| 7 | 4:23 – 4:33 | 10s |
| 8 | 4:45 – 4:52 | 6s |
| 9 | 5:40 – 5:43 | 3s |
| 10 | 6:23 – 6:29 | 6s |
| 11 | 6:55 – 6:58 | 3s |
| 12 | 7:43 – 7:50 | 8s |
What the signals did
| Signal | Flagged moments | Rest of the clip |
|---|---|---|
| Pitch variability (F0 semitone SD; normal band 2.3–4.5) | 1.74 st | 3.13 st |
| Blink rate | 23.54/min | 20.2/min |
| Voiced continuity | 0.12 | 0.14 |
The pattern here is mostly vocal. During the flagged moments Weiner's pitch variability dropped to 1.74 semitones against 3.13 in the rest of the interview — from comfortably inside the 2.3–4.5 band typical of engaged conversation to well below it. His blink rate also ran about 17% above his own baseline (23.5 vs 20.2 per minute). RedFlag's verdict is pitch-anchored, with blink and voicing changes relative to the speaker's own baseline adding weight; the exact thresholds are public in the scoring method.
What this does and does not mean
It does not mean the analyzer detected a lie. Flattened pitch, blink changes and unusual voicing all have innocent causes — rehearsal, fatigue, a hostile room, a hard question. The honest reading is narrower: at these moments, this speaker's delivery deviated from his own baseline in a measurable, repeatable way. What that meant is a judgment, and here the public record has already made it.
Run your own. Paste any public YouTube interview with a single speaker into the analyzer — free, no signup, in your browser. RedFlag charts the signals; what they mean stays your call.
Open the analyzerSources
- Analysis run: RedFlag analyzer (capture pipeline), September 2026, on YouTube RlrXQ6WwdOk. Figures are the analyzer's own per-slot output.
- Anthony Weiner's June 6, 2011 press conference admission; resignation June 16, 2011 (summary ↗).
- Scoring method and thresholds: How RedFlag scores a video.