Social media giants Facebook and Twitter have rejected US Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s demand to erase a video of her tearing up her copy of Trump’s speech during the State of the Union Address on Tuesday.
Pelosi’s office requested Facebook to remove the video, posted by President Donald Trump, which was manipulated to depict her tearing the speech while Trump saluted a Tuskegee airman in the audience.
The video, titled “Powerful American stories ripped to shreds by Nancy Pelosi,” was shared on both Trump’s Facebook and Twitter accounts before 6 p.m. Thursday. Trump has over 72 million followers.
In response, Facebook and Twitter declined to delete the videos, citing different reasons.
According to Andy Stone, a Facebook spokesman, “I can confirm that the video doesn’t violate our policies.”
Pelosi’s deputy chief of staff, Drew Hammill, posted a link criticizing the video on Friday afternoon, stating “The latest fake video of Speaker Pelosi is deliberately designed to mislead and lie to the American people, and every day that these platforms refuse to take it down is another reminder that they care more about their shareholders’ interests than the public’s interests.”
Twitter, in response to Hammill, said: “Sorry, are you suggesting the President didn’t make those remarks and the Speaker didn’t rip the speech?”
Hammill fired back: “What planet are you living on? This is deceptively altered. Take it down.”
Twitter announced this week a new set of rules for its users, which will take effect from March 5.
“You may not deceptively share synthetic or manipulated media that are likely to cause harm. In addition, we may label Tweets containing synthetic and manipulated media to help people understand the media’s authenticity and to provide additional context,” Twitter announced.
In less than 48 hours since the video was posted, it has received over 2.5 million views and reached almost 6 million people.