(Reuters) – Twitter Inc withdrew an image tweeted by United States President Donald Trump from his platform after receiving a copyright complaint from the New York Times.
FILE PHOTO: President of the United States, Donald Trump, in West Palm Beach, Florida, USA, January 3, 2020. REUTERS / Tom Brenner
Trump’s original tweet issued on June 30 showed a meme that said “They’re not really chasing me, but you, I’m on the way” with Trump’s image in the background.
The background photograph was taken by a New York Times photographer, to accompany an article about then-presidential candidate Trump in September 2015.
Twitter now displays the message “This image has been removed in response to a report from the copyright holder,” instead of the tweet.
The social media site movement is the last instance of content posted by Trump that is marked or removed, due to what Twitter says are copyright complaints, violation of his policy on threats of violence, among others.
Twitter removed the image after receiving a complaint from the New York Times Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), which owns the rights to the photo, according to a notice published in the Lumen database.
The database collects and analyzes legal complaints and requests for removal of materials online.
Twitter began challenging Trump’s tweets in May and has repeatedly clashed with him since then. The president threatened to change the laws on social media after Twitter tagged one of his tweets about postal voting as incorrect and concealed a tweet about the looting, which Twitter said fueled the violence.
A video tribute to George Floyd, a black man who died in Minneapolis police custody, was also disabled by Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram on their platforms last month, due to copyright complaints.
Twitter and NYT did not respond when contacted by Reuters for further comment.
Bhargav Acharya’s report in Bangalore; Sandra Maler’s Edition
.
