Friday, June 19, 2020

Twitter again slaps ‘manipulated media’ label on a Trump tweet

Tweet was shoddily manipulated to resemble a CNN video



Published: June 18, 2020 at 10:38 p.m. ET By Mike Murphy

ASSOCIATED PRESS

Twitter Inc. flagged a tweet by President Donald Trump that featured doctored video as “manipulated media” Thursday night.

Trump posted the minute-long video, which was shoddily manipulated to resemble a CNN video, with the headline “Terrified todler [sic] runs from racist baby.”



“You may not deceptively promote synthetic or manipulated media that are likely to cause harm,” Twitter TWTR, -0.90% said in the link from its warning label. “In addition, we may label Tweets containing synthetic and manipulated media to help people understand their authenticity and to provide additional context.”

Twitter has been more forceful recently in challenging Trump’s tweets, first flagging one of his tweets featuring a doctored video of Joe Biden as “manipulated media” in March.

Thursday’s move by Twitter came the same day that Facebook Inc. FB, +0.17% removed a Trump-Pence campaign ad that prominently displayed a symbol used by Nazi Germany.

Some on social media speculated that Trump is looking to provoke another headline-grabbing showdown with social-media companies amid a flurry of bad news for his campaign, including sinking poll numbers, disturbing allegations from former adviser John Bolton, rising coronavirus cases and continued tension over racial injustice.

On Wednesday, the Justice Department proposed rolling back legal protections that internet companies such as Twitter and Facebook have had for more than two decades, though such a change would have to be approved by Congress

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