Facebook, Twitter won’t delete Trump’s deceptively edited Pelosi video

Facebook and Twitter are once again pretending there’s nothing wrong with deceptive behavior in politics.

During Tuesday night’s State of the Union, House speaker Nancy Pelosi upstaged Trump by ripping up his speech. It happened near the end of the evening, just as the president concluded his remarks. The moment predictably went viral, garnering a lot of chatter on social media and memes — including Pelosi later saying she “tore it up.” 

The Trump administration also hopped on the meme bandwagon with an edited video. The 5-minute clip, posted to Trump’s official Facebook and Twitter accounts on Thursday, intercut the Pelosi moment with the president praising national heroes like the Tuskegee Airmen and gold star families during his speech. The text overlaid on the video reads, “Powerful American stories ripped to shreds by Nancy Pelosi.” It has amassed 4.7 million views on Twitter and 2.5 million views on Facebook thus far.

Within hours, CNBC reports, Pelosi’s team asked Facebook and Twitter to take the video down due to it being misleading, making it appear as if Pelosi was ripping up the praise of these Americans. Soon, the tiff became public with Pelosi’s deputy chief of staff Drew Hammill taking to Twitter to voice his concerns. 

“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,” Hammill tweeted. He continued, saying that Trump’s video was deliberately edited to mislead and lie to Americans. “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,” he said. 

Facebook spokesperson Andy Stone replied to Hammill: “Sorry, are you suggesting the President didn’t make those remarks and the Speaker didn’t rip the speech?” He later linked to Facebook’s manipulated media policy, which he also passed along to Mashable. 

Facebook declined to give an official comment to Mashable, but Stone confirmed the video does not violate the policy. Videos have to, according to the policy, have “been edited or synthesized – beyond adjustments for clarity or quality – in ways that aren’t apparent to an average person and would likely mislead someone into thinking that a subject of the video said words that they did not actually say.” There is no clarification to who the “average person” is.

Hammill asked Stone “what planet he’s living on,” and urged again to take the video down. It remains up on both Facebook and Twitter.

Twitter just released a new manipulated media policy of its own to combat deepfakes leading into the election, but it does not go into affect until March 5. As of now, the video doesn’t violate their policy. When asked for comment, Twitter spokeswoman Katie Rosborough told CNBC: “I can’t get into hypotheticals.” 

Twitter declined to comment further after Mashable reached out for a statement.