US President Donald Trump in a campaign video can be heard saying on the death of George Floyd, that he regretted the “grave tragedy”. The video that has Trump asking people against taking up “violence and anarchy” from getting influenced by “radical left-wing groups” show images of riots and looting before moving onto show police officers hugging people.
Twitter has disabled this video by citing it affected the company’s copyright policy, Reuters reported. The video that was posted on the president’s YouTube channel was posted on Twitter by one of Trump’s aides.
“We respond to valid copyright complaints sent to us by a copyright owner or their authorised representatives,” a Twitter representative said.
The clip, which is still on YouTube, has garnered over 96,000 views and 15,000 likes. YouTube’s parent company Google has not yet commented on the matter.
Twitter’s latest move is likely to force Trump into hardening his stance against the microblogging website headed by Jack Dorsey. On May 28, after Trump sent out a tweet indicating that mail-ballots were fraudulent, Twitter flagged the Tweet with a fact-check warning. The president did not take kindly to this and accused Twitter of interfering with the 2020 elections. He further warned that he could shut down the social media platform.
The organisation’s CEO Jack Dorsey reinforced his stance and said that it was his job to point out incorrect and disputed information about elections globally.
Trump on Monday declared himself “the president of law and order” and threatened to deploy the US military to American cities to quell a rise of violent protests.
US civil rights groups on Thursday filed a case suing Trump after security forces fired pepper balls and smoke bombs to clear protesters outside the White House.
On Thursday, former presidents including Barack Obama, Jimmy Carter and George W. Bush criticised Trump’s comments without naming the incumbent president.
