Twitter Inc has disabled US President Donald Trump’s campaign tribute video to George Floyd on its platform, citing a copyright complaint.
The clip, which is a collation of photos and videos of protest marches and instances of violence in the aftermath of Floyd’s death, has Trump speaking in the background.
Floyd’s death last week after a fatal encounter with a police officer has led to nationwide protests. In widely circulated video footage, a white officer was seen kneeling on Floyd’s neck as Floyd gasped for air and repeatedly groaned, “I can't breathe,” before passing out.
Twitter said the video on the President’s campaign account was affected by its copyright policy.
“We respond to valid copyright complaints sent to us by a copyright owner or their authorized representatives,” a Twitter representative said.
The social media platform has been under fierce scrutiny from the Trump administration since it fact-checked Trump’s tweets about unsubstantiated claims of mail-in voting fraud. It also labelled a Trump tweet about protests in Minneapolis as “glorifying violence”.
Trump has pledged to introduce legislation that may scrap or weaken a law that shields social media companies from liability for content posted by their users.
US President Donald Trump. (AP)
Ken Farnaso, Trump campaign’s deputy press secretary, said it was “unsurprisingly sad” that Twitter had joined the mainstream media in censoring the President’s message.
The three-minute 45-second video was tweeted by his campaign on June 3. It was also uploaded on Trump’s YouTube channel and his campaign's Facebook page. The clip has more than 1.4 million views on YouTube and Facebook combined.
Facebook said it has not received any copyright complaints related to the clip, while YouTube’s parent Google did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
In the past, Twitter has taken down at least two of Trump’s videos that had music from the soundtrack of the Batman movie The Dark Knight Rises and Nickelback’s Photograph.
President sued
An advocacy group backed by the tech industry sued President Donald Trump on Tuesday over his executive order that would weaken a law protecting online platforms including social media companies that label his posts.
The Washington-based Center for Democracy & Technology said in its lawsuit that Trump’s executive order violates the First Amendment rights of social media companies. It noted that the order was issued after Twitter amended one of Trump’s tweets.
The lawsuit argues that Trump’s executive order will “chill future online speech by other speakers” and reduce the ability of Americans to speak freely online. Trump said he will introduce legislation that may weaken a law that has protected tech firms.
