Twitter Inc, Facebook Inc and Instagram disabled U.S. President Donald Trump’s campaign tribute video to George Floyd on their platforms on Friday, citing copyright complaints.
The clip, which shows 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 the African American gasped for air and repeatedly groaned, “I can’t breathe,” before passing out.
“We respond to valid copyright complaints sent to us by a copyright owner or their authorized representatives,” a Twitter representative said.
Facebook, which owns photo and video-sharing network Instagram, said it removed the post after receiving the creator’s copyright complaint under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.
“Organizations that use original art shared on Instagram are expected to have the right to do so,” it said in a statement.
Twitter 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 labeled 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.
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.
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”.
— Reuters