Twitter’s Jack Dorsey stood firm Friday after President Trump cried foul over the removal of a video about George Floyd his reelection campaign had posted on the platform.
Mr. Dorsey, Twitter’s co-founder and chief executive, maintained the video was removed from his social media service in response to a complaint made under federal copyright law.
Responding to a remark Mr. Trump made earlier Friday night, Mr. Dorsey rejected the president’s claim Twitter broke the law by recently pulling the video from its platform.
“Not true and not illegal,” Mr. Dorsey said on Twitter, adding the video was taken down because of a complaint made with the company under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.
“This was pulled because we got a DMCA complaint from copyright holder,” Mr. Dorsey tweeted.
Mr. Trump’s reelection campaign had shared the video on several social media services Wednesday amid nationwide unrest sparked by Floyd’s racially charged killing late last month.
Nearly four minutes in length, the video consists of a montage of brief clips and photographs showing the nation’s reaction to Floyd’s killing combined with audio of Mr. Trump discussing the matter during a recent speech.
The Lumen Database, a public database of DMCA complaints, shows at least one copyright claim was filed in response to Mr. Trump’s tweet. Facebook said it removed the video from its namesake social network and photo-sharing service Instagram in response to a DMCA complaint as well.
Mr. Trump claimed the video was removed to illegally hurt his campaign, however.
“They are fighting hard for the Radical Left Democrats. A one sided battle. Illegal,” Mr. Trump said in the tweet that prompted Mr. Dorsey’s response later Friday.
“Section 230!” Mr. Trump added in the tweet, referring to part of the U.S. Communications Decency Act that he wants to eliminate as part of his push to regulate social media services.
The video remained available Saturday morning on the Trump campaign’s account on YouTube.
Floyd, 46, was killed May 25 while in the custody of the Minneapolis Police Department. Four officers have since been fired from the force and charged in connection with his death.
The montage put by Mr. Trump’s re-election campaign contains photos and video of peaceful protests against police brutality and systemic racism sparked by Floyd’s death, in addition to images showing criminal acts of arson and vandalism to emerge amid the unrest as well.
Mr. Trump calls Floyd’s death a “grave tragedy” in the video before singling out “radical left-wing groups” and anti-fascist activists he blames for the destruction.
• Andrew Blake can be reached at ablake@washingtontimes.com.
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