Twitter has blocked a video paying tribute to George Floyd, an African American man who died in Minneapolis police custody, posted by the election campaign of US President Donald Trump, due to copyright infringement, media reported on Friday
MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 05th June, 2020) Twitter has blocked a video paying tribute to George Floyd, an African American man who died in Minneapolis police custody, posted by the election campaign of US President Donald Trump, due to copyright infringement, media reported on Friday.
According to The Hill news website, the nearly four-minute-long video is accompanied by Trump's speech, which the leader delivered a few days after the death of Floyd. In the video, Trump talks about the "grave tragedy" over images of peaceful protests, then warns about "violence and anarchy" from the "radical left-wing groups" over images of riots. The president also talks about the work of law enforcement officers, describing them as "devoted public servants."
The newspaper reported, citing a Twitter spokesperson, that the social media platform received a complaint from a copyright owner of at least one of the images used in the video, without specifying which one.
Following the block, Trump's election campaign team accused Twitter of "censoring out the president's important message of unity around the George Floyd protests," slamming the move as an example of the double standard. The team already made an appeal to Twitter to find out who complained about the video and the details of the infringement, the media added.
The incident comes amid heightened tensions between the social media platform and the US leader, who signed in late May an executive order that could open the door for Federal regulators to fine online platforms, such as Twitter, Facebook and Google, for censoring online content.
