Twitter confirmed that it deleted a campaign video that President Trump had retweeted on Saturday over a copyright complaint. Linkin Park’s song “In the End” appeared in the background of the video, which included images of President Trump and excerpts from his opening speech.
“In accordance with our copyright policy, we respond to valid copyright complaints sent to us by the copyright owner or his authorized representative,” a Twitter spokesperson said in an email to The edge on Sunday.
The band tweeted Saturday that they were looking for a “cease and desist” and that they had not authorized the use of their song in the video: “Linkin Park did not endorse or endorse Trump.”
Linkin Park neither endorsed nor endorses Trump, nor authorized his organization to use our music. A cease and desist has been issued.
– LINKIN PARK (@linkinpark) July 19, 2020
The copyright notice has been published in the Lumen Database non-profit transparency initiative.
White House deputy director of communications staff Dan Scavino tweeted the video on Friday night and President Trump’s official Twitter retweeted it on Saturday. The retweet is no longer visible on the President’s Twitter feed, but Scavino’s original tweet is still live as of Sunday morning (minus the video).
:format(webp):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/20098112/trump_tweet_disabled.jpg)
Twitter / screenshot
It is not the first time that Twitter has taken action against one of Trump’s tweets over a copyright complaint. Last month, he disabled a four-minute campaign video featuring images of George Floyd, the Minneapolis man who died on May 25 after a police officer knelt on his neck. Facebook and Instagram removed posts from their platforms showing the video. The president called the deletion “illegal” in a tweet, but Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey replied, “Not true or illegal. This was withdrawn because we received a DMCA complaint from the copyright holder.”
Trump has had other tweets marked by Twitter that he said were in conflict with his content policies. In May, the social media platform added a tag to a tweet where Trump warned “when the looting begins, the shooting begins,” because Twitter said the tweet violated his policy against glorifying violence. A June tweet from the president with a tampered video was labeled “manipulated media.”
The Trump campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Sunday.
