By Steve Sailer
06/19/2020
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 19, 2020
From The New York Times:
Twitter Labels Trump Tweet About ‘Racist Baby’ as Manipulated Media
It was the first time that Twitter had used that tag on one of the president’s messages.
By Kate Conger
June 18, 2020OAKLAND, Calif. — Twitter added a warning to a post from President Trump about a racist baby on Thursday, saying it contained manipulated media designed to mislead people.
Mr. Trump’s tweet, which he posted earlier on Thursday, featured a video of two toddlers running down a sidewalk. The video had been altered to appear as if CNN had broadcast it, along with a fake chyron that claimed, “Racist baby probably a Trump voter.” The video went on to accuse “fake news” of stoking misinformation.
Mr. Trump sourced the video from a popular pro-Trump meme creator who goes by the name CarpeDonktum.
Twitter added the warning later on Thursday after the tweet had been viewed nearly four million times, tagging it with an exclamation mark and the words “manipulated media.” The company’s policies prohibit sharing videos, photos or audio that “have been deceptively altered or fabricated” to trick viewers and have the potential to cause harm. It was the first time Twitter used that particular label on one of Mr. Trump’s posts.
The move is likely to reignite tensions between Mr. Trump and the social media service, which the president uses multiple times a day to broadcast messages to his more than 82 million followers. While Twitter for years took a hands-off approach to Mr. Trump’s tweets, it adopted a more activist position last month by adding labels disputing the accuracy of some of the president’s messages and by cautioning that his posts glorified violence.
The actions provoked Mr. Trump, who last month signed an executive order designed to chip away at legal protections for Twitter and other internet companies that shield them from liability for what their users post.
The back-and-forth has fueled a debate about the responsibilities that social media companies have for what is posted on their sites. Facebook has also been under pressure to remove some of Mr. Trump’s posts but has said that it will not do so because it is not an arbiter of speech. Mr. Trump also shared the altered video of the two toddlers on his Facebook page on Thursday.
Even as Facebook has said it values free speech, it also has policies against hateful iconography. Earlier on Thursday, the social network removed ads posted on its platform from the Trump re-election campaign that prominently featured a symbol used by Nazis to classify political prisoners during World War II.
Antifa uses the upside down red triangle as a symbol. I’m presuming that’s what the Trump commercial was about.
Words not appearing in this New York Times article: satire, joke, comedy.
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