Summary: Facebook labeled a video posted by President Donald Trump as “partly false.”
On Monday, Facebook joined Twitter in flagging a manipulated video featuring former Vice President Joe Biden, shared by both President Trump and the White House.
A day after Donald Trump shared Joe Biden’s speech that had been edited to make it seem like he was saying President Trump would be reelected, Facebook applied a “partly false” label to the clip. The video, shared by White House social media director Dan Scavino and retweeted by the President, was also flagged by Twitter as “manipulated media” on Sunday.
The original video shows the presidential candidate during his speech warning about the potential of reelecting Trump.
“Excuse me. We can only reelect Donald Trump if we get engaged in this circular firing squad here. It’s got to be a positive campaign, so join us,” Biden said during the speech.
However, the manipulated version cuts off after Biden says “we can only reelect Donald Trump.”
The President retweeted the video to his 73.5 million Twitter followers, with the comment “I agree with Joe!”
“The video was not manipulated,” Tim Murtaugh, a spokesman for the Trump re-election campaign, said. “Joe Biden really is that bad.”
The edited clip was shared throughout much of Sunday without any response from the social media networks. It had been retweeted more than 20,000 times and viewed more than five million times. After Twitter users flagged the video, twitter labeled it as manipulated content. This is the first time that the social media network applied a policy announced in February against misleading and fake videos.
Facebook did not remove the video right away and was criticized by the Biden campaign.
‘Facebook’s malfeasance when it comes to trafficking in blatantly false information is a national crisis in this respect,” said Greg Schultz, Mr. Biden’s campaign manager, in a statement.
“It is also an unconscionable act of putting profit above not just our country, but every country,” he added. “Facebook won’t say it, but it is apparent to all who have examined their conduct and policies: They care first and foremost about money and, to that end, are willing to serve as one of the world’s most effective mediums for the spread of vile lies.”
The video was flagged by one of Facebook’s fact-checking partners.
“Fact-checkers rated this video as partly false, so we are reducing its distribution and showing warning labels with more context for people who see it, try to share it, or already have,” Facebook said in a statement Monday.
“As we announced last year, the same applies if a politician shares the video if it was otherwise fact-checked when shared by others on Facebook.”