Twitter suspends Donald Trump’s tribute video to George Floyd over a copyright complaint

Twitter have disabled a video paying tribute to George Floyd by Donald Trump’s campaign team, saying it’s the subject of a copyright complaint.

Twitter have disabled a George Floyd tribute video, posted by US President Donald Trump’s campaign, on its platform, citing a copyright complaint, in the latest clash between the leader and the social media platform.

The clip features Mr Trump speaking, with an overlay of photos and videos of protest marches and instances of violence that have occurred in the aftermath of the 36-year-old’s death at the hands of a white police officer in Minneapolis, Minnesota, last week.

In widely-circulated footage, former police officer Derek Chauvin was seen kneeling on Mr Floyd’s neck for nine minutes, as he gasped for air and repeatedly groaned “I can’t breathe”, before becoming unconscious.

Twitter said the video on the President’s campaign Twitter account, retweeted by both the President personally and his son, was affected by its copyright policy.

“We respond to valid copyright complaints sent to us by a copyright owner or their authorised representatives,” a Twitter spokesman told Reuters.

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The three-minute, 45-second video uploaded on Mr Trump’s YouTube channel was tweeted by his campaign on Thursday. The clip, which is still on YouTube, had garnered more than 60,000 views and 13,000 likes.

The videostreaming platform’s parent Google did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The US President has repeatedly clashed with the social media platform since it placed a fact check on two of his tweets in which he made unsubstantiated claims of mail-in voting fraud last month.

Twitter said the tweets violated its “civic integrity policy”, which bars users from “manipulating or interfering in elections or other civic processes”.

Last week, another of Mr Trump’s tweets were hidden, this one relating to the America-wide protests that have stemmed from Mr Floyd’s death. In the tweet, he said: “When the looting starts, the shooting starts” and threatened to call in the military, which Twitter said was “glorifying violence”.

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Twitter is doing nothing about all of the lies & propaganda being put out by China or the Radical Left Democrat Party. They have targeted Republicans, Conservatives & the President of the United States. Section 230 should be revoked by Congress. Until then, it will be regulated!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 29, 2020

“Twitter is doing nothing about all of the lies & propaganda being put out by China or the Radical Left Democrat Party,” Mr Trump tweeted in response to the social media platform’s move.

“They have targeted Republicans, Conservatives & the President of the United States. Section 230 should be revoked by Congress. Until then, it will be regulated!”

Mr Trump has pledged to introduce legislation that may scrap or weaken a law that shields social media companies from liability for content posted by their users.

– With wires