Twitter determined that a White House official published a manipulated video of 2020 Democratic front-runner Joe Biden, adding a label to the tweet to notify users.
Dan Scavino Jr., an assistant to the president and the director of social media at the White House, tweeted a video of Biden from a Saturday campaign event in Kansas City, Missouri. In the 13-second clip, the former vice president stumbled on a sentence and then said, “Excuse me. We can only reelect Donald Trump.”
The clip, however, failed to include the second half of Biden’s sentence, which read in full, “Excuse me. We can only reelect Donald Trump if in fact we get engaged in this circular firing squad here. It’s gotta be a positive campaign.”
Sleepy Joe?in St. Louis, Missouri today:
“We can only re-elect @realDonaldTrump.”#KAG2020LandslideVictory?? pic.twitter.com/FT4q2MWfcD
— Dan Scavino (@DanScavino) March 8, 2020
The social media platform ruled that the video violated the company’s new synthetic and manipulated media policy, a Twitter spokeswoman told the Washington Examiner Sunday. The tweet, which remained active on Scavino’s timeline as of that night, featured a blue exclamation point and the label “manipulated media.” Trump also retweeted the manipulated video.
The incident marked the first time a tweet has received the label as a result of the new policy, which went into effect only last Thursday, according to a company spokeswoman.
The manipulated media policy, which is meant to limit the spread of fake or misleading information, will use three guidelines in order to rule whether a video is fake and if it should be taken down. Such action may be warranted if the following questions can be answered in the affirmative: Are the media synthetic or manipulated? Are the media shared in a deceptive manner? Is the content likely to affect public safety or cause serious harm?
Depending on the answers to those questions, Twitter can “provide additional context on the tweet,” which could range from applying “a label to the tweet,” showing “a warning to people before they retweet or like the tweet,” reducing its visibility or removing it entirely, or providing additional clarifications or explanations, according to a blog post from the site.
