Twitter Deletes Trump's Uplifting George Floyd Tribute Video
Anti-Trump social media giant continues censorship campaign against president
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Twitter has upped the ante in its war against Donald Trump yet again, this time by deleting an uplifting tribute video to George Floyd that was posted by the president's reelection campaign.
In the video, President Trump urges unity and solidarity across America while calling for an end to the violent riots.
The video, titled "Healing, Not Hatred," shows powerful images Americans coming together amid the chaos.
The Trump campaign tweeted the four-minute video on Thursday, and Twitter removed it later on the same day.
Speaking of protesters calling for justice in the notorious killing of the Minneapolis black man, Trump said “we hear their pleas.”
The video received more than a million views and also was retweeted by Donald Trump Jr. before being pulled down.
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“This X 1000!!!,” Trump Jr. said.
Now the video has been removed and replaced by a message that reads; “this media has been disabled in response to a report by the copyright owner.”
This X 1000!!! https://t.co/aEiH5ZEIUx
— Donald Trump Jr. (@DonaldJTrumpJr) June 4, 2020
Later in the video, according to The Hill, the president warns about “violence and anarchy” from “radical leftwing groups” and the images show looting and violent mayhem.
Trump’s voiceover also calls police “devoted public servants” to a backdrop of images showing officers hugging civilians and people cleaning up graffiti and garbage, the Hill reported.
At the time of publishing, the video is still active on YouTube, however.
WATCH:
Twitter and @Jack are censoring this uplifting and unifying message from President Trump after the #GeorgeFloyd tragedy.
— Team Trump (Text TRUMP to 88022) (@TeamTrump) June 4, 2020
The same speech the media refused to cover.
Here is the YouTube link.
WATCH AND MAKE IT GO VIRAL: https://t.co/7V72z7JiKm https://t.co/xBgkc1bvPm
The Trump campaign says it reached out to Twitter to ask who had complained about the video and how it had run afoul of the website’s copyright policy.
“This incident is yet another reminder that Twitter is making up the rules as they go along," said Andrew Clark, a spokesman for the Trump campaign.
"From the dubious removal of the hilarious Nickelback video to capricious fact checks and manipulated media labels to questionable claims of copyright, Twitter has repeatedly failed to explain why their rules seem to only apply to the Trump campaign but not to others.
"Censoring out the president’s important message of unity around the George Floyd protests is an unfortunate escalation of this double standard.”
A Twitter spokesperson told The Hill they received a complaint from a copyright owner of at least one of the images in the video, although it’s unclear which one.
Harvard University's Lumen Database, a third-party research group Twitter uses to study cease and desist letters, reviewed the complaint and found it to be valid under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.
Twitter’s latest move to sanction the Trump campaign’s content comes amid heightened tensions between the social media giant and the president.
Last week, Twitter appended a fact check to one of the president’s claims about mail voting fraud.
The president responded with an executive order directing the federal government to consider stripping some of the legal protections afforded to the social media platforms.
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Republicans are concerned by what they view as liberal bias in Silicon Valley and an effort by the tech giants to tilt the playing field toward Democrats in an election year.
The Trump campaign has complained about what it describes as Twitter’s arbitrary standards and liberal fact-checkers that they say are being used to challenge normal-course political statements.
Democrats are on heightened alert over the spread of misinformation after the Intelligence Community determined that Russian agents used Twitter and Facebook to spread propaganda aimed at influencing the outcome of the 2016 election in favor of Trump.
The Democrats are demanding the social media giants crack down on false or misleading political speech.
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has said his website will not get into the business of fact-checking or removing most political content, infuriating Democrats.
Twitter has been more aggressive in fact-checking and removing content that it deems to be misleading or manipulated.
