Twitter and Facebook blocked President Donald Trump‘s reelection campaign from sharing a video tribute to George Floyd, the African American man killed by a Minneapolis police officer, over a copyright claim.
The social media company took down a video posted by @TeamTrump with a note saying, “This media has been disabled in response to a claim by the copyright owner.” The video is still posted on the president’s YouTube channel.
California lawyer Sam Koolaq told Politico his firm sent copyright complaints to Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and YouTube. He did not disclose who his client was.
Facebook, which owns Instagram, said it removed the post after receiving the copyright complaint under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.
“Organizations that use original art shared on Instagram are expected to have the right to do so,” the company said in a statement.
YouTube did not take down the video because it was a different version than the one posted on Twitter and the content flagged in the complaint was not present in that version, YouTube said.
Trump condemned Twitter for taking down the video saying, “They are fighting hard for the Radical Left Democrats. A one sided battle. Illegal.”
Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey responded to Trump’s claims saying, “Not true and not illegal. This was pulled because we got a DMCA complaint from copyright holder.”
The three-minute and 45-second clip is a video montage of peaceful protests and police officers hugging demonstrators juxtaposed with burning buildings and vandalism with a voice-over by Trump.
