Democrats cried foul Friday after President Trump shared a manipulated video on social media targeting House Speaker Nancy Pelosi for tearing up his State of the Union speech.
Over five minutes in length, the doctored video includes footage from Mr. Trump’s address Tuesday edited to show Mrs. Pelosi ripping up her copy of the speech — not at its conclusion, as the California Democrat did, but instead immediately after the president acknowledged several guests in attendance and touted various achievements accomplished during his administration.
The video clip was shared Thursday by Mr. Trump’s accounts on Twitter and Facebook, where it was viewed a total of roughly 5.6 million times in less than 24 hours.
Both companies have faced calls in the interim to remove the video from their respective social media services from Democrats who have described it as misleading.
“The American people know that the President has no qualms about lying to them — but it is a shame to see Twitter and Facebook, sources of news for millions, do the same,” Drew Hammill, Mrs. Pelosi’s deputy chief of staff, said in a statement to The Washington Times.
“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,” added Mr. Hammill, who said Mrs. Pelosi’s office has asked both Facebook and Twitter to remove the video.
Several of the House speaker’s Democratic colleagues have separately taken to Twitter to urge the company to remove Mr. Trump’s video, meanwhile, including Reps. Don Beyer of Virginia, David Cicilline of Rhode Island, Veronica Escobar of Texas and Ro Khanna of California.
“Social media platforms are a place where people come for news & information. They need to have certain standards,” tweeted Mr. Khanna, who represents a district including parts of Silicon Valley. “Falsity has never been part of our 1st Amendment tradition.”
Indeed, Facebook and Twitter each recently announced new policies for handling “manipulated media” posted on their platforms. Facebook’s only applies to videos generated by artificial intelligence, and Twitter’s is not slated to take effect until March, however.
• Andrew Blake can be reached at ablake@washingtontimes.com.
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