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Twitter labels Biden video shared by Trump 'manipulated media'

As part of its struggle to fight the misleading campaigns on the platform, social media giant Twitter Inc on Wednesday labeled a video, which appeared to show Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden playing rap group NWA's song, "Fuck tha Police" as "manipulated media," after the relevant visual content was shared U.S. President Donald Trump on the official page.

Reuters WORLD
Published September 16,2020
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Twitter Inc on Wednesday labeled a video shared twice by U.S. President Donald Trump of Democratic presidential rival Joe Biden as "manipulated media."

The video, which appeared to show Biden playing rap group N.W.A's song, "Fuck tha Police," now displays a warning that links to collated tweets showing the actual event, where Biden pulled out his phone to play Luis Fonsi's hit "Despacito" at a Hispanic Heritage Month event in Florida after being introduced by Fonsi.

Trump has cast himself as a "law-and-order" president during the campaign, in response to widespread protests, most of them peaceful, following the police killing of George Floyd, a Black man in Minneapolis. He tweeted with the edited video: "What is this all about?"

A Twitter spokeswoman said the video, which garnered more than 2.8 million views, was labeled based on its synthetic and manipulated media policy. The United Spot, self-described as making satirical videos, posted the original tweet.

Twitter has previously attached labels to tweets posted and shared by the president, including adding fact-checking notices on his tweets containing misleading information about mail-in ballots.

Biden's digital director Rob Flaherty criticized Twitter's labeling of the clip as insufficient, tweeting, "this is Trump's second tweet on this fake video. the only notice you get is this itty bitty little flag at the bottom that it's 'manipulated media' that you can barely notice."

The Trump campaign did not immediately respond to Reuters requests for comment.