Twitter only implemented its new policy against manipulated media on Mar. 5, but it’s already been put to use.
White House social media director Dan Scavino has become one of the first to be impacted by the new policy after a video of Joe Biden that he tweeted was tagged as manipulated media.
Last month, Twitter announced it was introducing a rule against “deceptively [sharing] synthetic or manipulated media that are likely to cause harm,” and would be adding warnings to some tweets that contain “synthetic and manipulated media.” Such media has become a worrying issue in political campaigns, with online misinformation a significant concern in recent and upcoming elections.
It was therefore unsurprising that a politician was very quickly caught in Twitter’s new net.
In the deceptive 13-second clip uploaded by Scavino, Democratic candidate Joe Biden appears to say Democrats “cannot win this re-election.” “We can only re-elect Donald Trump,” he apparently says.
Just in: Twitter applied its new manipulated media label for the first time to a deceptively edited video of Joe Biden. It was shared by White House social media director Dan Scavino, and retweeted by the president. pic.twitter.com/PggcCwMNkx
— Cat Zakrzewski (@Cat_Zakrzewski) March 8, 2020
Sleepy Joe💤in St. Louis, Missouri today:
“We can only re-elect @realDonaldTrump.”#KAG2020LandslideVictory🇺🇸 pic.twitter.com/FT4q2MWfcD
— Dan Scavino (@DanScavino) March 8, 2020
In actuality, the video ends midway through Biden’s sentence. The footage was taken from Biden’s Kansas City, Mo. rally on Saturday, and complete recordings of the event show him saying, “We can only re-elect Donald Trump if in fact we get engaged in this circular firing squad here. It’s gotta be a positive campaign, so join us.”
Biden’s statement that Democrats “cannot win” was further a simple matter of him fumbling his words.
This, of course, didn’t stop Scavino uploading the cropped footage to his 700,000 followers, nor did it stop President Donald Trump from retweeting it to his 73.4 million.
Twitter marked Scavino’s tweet as manipulated media almost a day after it was posted, by which time it had already accumulated thousands of retweets and millions of views. Better late than never, but it would have been better early than late.
SEE ALSO: Twitter will label deepfakes and other ‘manipulated media’
The warning on Scavino’s tweet doesn’t show up all the time, either. The Washington Post reported that it doesn’t appear when users search for the tweet, which Mashable confirmed. Fortunately, Twitter told the Post it is working on a fix.
Scavino is, of course, defending his tweet. Since posting the video, he has retweeted several other users claiming it has not been manipulated, only clipped. However, the video is clearly and deliberately presenting a false, misleading account of actual events. Trying to defend it is basically arguing that a lie by omission isn’t a lie.