Twitter flags Trump tweet as ‘manipulated media’

Twitter is running out of labels to slap on President Trump’s tweets. 

The social media site flagged a recent Trump tweet ‘manipulated media,’ per its rule that forbids users to “deceptively promote synthetic or manipulated media that are likely to cause harm.”

The tweet in question contains a doctored video of the toddler besties encounter that went viral in 2019. In Trump’s version, the video has a fake CNN label and purports to show CNN as misidentifying one of the toddlers as “racist.”

Trump’s tweet is visible to other Twitter users, but has a “Manipulated media” flag right below the video. If you click on the flag, you’ll get a short fact check that explains the video is fake. 

“In September 2019, CNN reported on a viral video about a friendship between two toddlers. On Thursday, the president shared a version of the video which many journalists confirmed was edited and doctored with a fake CNN chyron,” says Twitter. 

At writing time, Trump’s tweet has more than 342,000 likes and more than 162,000 retweets.

This isn’t the first time Twitter has labeled one of Trump’s tweets as fake or dangerous. In late May, Twitter added a fact check to a Trump tweet which falsely claimed that providing mail-in ballots to the residents of California would automatically result in a “Rigged Election.” A few days later, Twitter completely hid another Trump tweet from view, arguing that it violated its rules about glorifying violence. 

Trump responded to the first fact check with an executive order on social media, asking federal agencies to request the FCC reconsider the scope of Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act.

Notably, Facebook, which has so far been adamant in its stance not to censor Trump’s misleading content, yesterday took the step of removing Trump campaign ads which contain Nazi symbols.