As US presidential election inches closer, the manipulated video war on Twitter intensified with the microblogging platform -- after suspending 70 accounts posting pro-Michael Bloomberg content – on Saturday censored an official video released by RNC Research, managed by the Republican Party in the US.
In the Republican video titled "I've seen it getting better and better," manufacturing workers in the "blue-collar room" are seen praising President Donald Trump for his work to strengthen the US economy. The Twitter moderation team flagged the video as containing "potentially sensitive content," reports The Post Millennial.
The Twitter action irked Donald Trump Jr who immediately tweeted: "This is a disgrace. Something we should be celebrating the social media masters are censoring such bull****!"
Censorship raised by Steve Guest
The censorship was first raised by Steve Guest, the GOP's Rapid Response Director.
"Give me a break. Twitter is censoring the @RNCResearch video on the "blue-collar boom" under @realDonaldTrump for "potentially sensitive content," tweeted Guest.
The US goes to election on November 3 to elect the new president but the fake news and manipulated media have already begun circulating on various social media platforms, including Twitter.
Twitter on Friday suspended 70 accounts that were posting pro-Michael Bloomberg content for allegedly violating its online policies. According to a report in The Los Angeles Times, the Democratic Party contender's campaign deployed a large number of Twitter accounts to push out identical messages in the US presidential election this year.
"We have taken enforcement action on a group of accounts for violating our rules against platform manipulation and spam," a Twitter spokesperson was quoted as saying.
The Bloomberg campaign has allegedly hired hundreds of temporary employees to pump out campaign messages through Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. Twitter said some of the account suspensions would be permanent, according to the report. Earlier, a video posted by Bloomberg left Facebook and Twitter divided on whether it violates their policies.
While Twitter said the video would be labelled as manipulated media under the platform's new deepfakes policy, Facebook said the same video would not violate the platform's deepfakes rules.
Earlier this month, Facebook, Twitter, and Google-owned YouTube refused to pull down an edited video posted by US President Donald Trump that showed House Speaker Nancy Pelosi ripping up a copy of the former's State of the Union address.
