People protest against the death of George Floyd in Washington DC
New Delhi:
Twitter has disabled the video of tribute to the campaign of US President Donald Trump to a black man who died in police custody, an incident that sparked mass protests across the United States, news agency reported this morning Reuters.
The 3.40-minute video was tweeted on June 3. Twitter said the video on the President’s campaign account was affected by his copyright policy. “We are responding to valid copyright complaints sent to us by a copyright owner or their authorized representatives,” said Reuters quoting a Twitter representative.
The clip, which is still on YouTube, garnered over 60,000 views and 13,000 likes. Google, the parent of the video streaming platform, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The latest Twitter decision will likely force Trump to toughen his stance against the world‘s largest microblogging site led by Jack Dorsey. Twitter reported last week that the President’s tweets on postal voting were inaccurate, resulting in a confrontation between Mr. Dorsey and Mr. Trump, who threatened to shut down social media over Twitter’s actions on his posts.
In the Trump campaign video on the death of George Floyd, Trump is heard to regret the “serious tragedy” of Mr. Floyd’s death. Later in the video, the American president asked people not to accept that “violence and anarchy” were influenced by “radical leftist groups”. Images of riots and looting are then shown, before the clip passes to show police hugging people.
American civil rights groups filed a lawsuit against Trump on Thursday after security forces fired pepperballs and smoke bombs to expel protesters outside the White House.
Dorsey strongly supported Twitter’s decision to report the President’s tweets. “Factual check: there is someone ultimately responsible for our actions as a company, and it is me. Please leave our employees out of this. We will continue to report incorrect or disputed information about elections around the world. And we will admit and own all the mistakes we make, “tweeted Dorsey on May 28.
Twitter had tagged two of Mr. Trump’s tweets in which he claimed that more postal votes would lead to what he called a “rigged election” in November. There is no evidence that attempts are being made to rig the elections, and under tweets Twitter posted a link that said, “Get the facts on the postal ballots.”
Facebook chief Mark Zuckerberg also waded the line, but with a different policy than that of Mr. Dorsey. “I firmly believe that Facebook should not be the arbiter of the truth about everything people say online,” Zuckerberg told Fox News last week.
With contributions from Reuters
