Twitter removes Trump’s tweet with his image after New York Times complains about copyright violation
President Donald Trump's Twitter account was censored again by the popular micro-blogging site on Wednesday, July 1, after the New York Times (NYT) filed a copyright claim to one of the pictures he had tweeted. The Republican leader had shared a meme on Twitter that featured a rallying cry to his supporters, the NYT, however, owns the rights to the original image.
Although copyrighted materials for the purposes of commentary and parody are permitted under fair use doctrine, the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) allows copyright holders the right to request that the content be taken down. The meme, which has now been deleted from Trump's Twitter account, reportedly featured an image of him with the words: "In reality they’re not after me, they’re after you. I’m just in the way."
A spokesperson from the NYT reportedly confirmed to Axios that the outlet had filed a copyright claim to the picture, which led to its removal from Trump's Twitter account. Many Twitter users, who attempted to view what the president had tweeted, instead, was showed a message from the micro-blogging company, stating that the image was removed because of a copyright complaint.
The social media giant's move comes after it intensified censorship of the content released by President Trump. Twitter, last month, had blocked a tweet from the Republican leader, which warned anti-racism protesters that any attempts to set up an "autonomous zone" near the White House would be met with force. The company stated that Trump's pledge to use force constituted "abusive behavior."
Trump, on May 27, had also threatened to shut down social media networks nearly a day after Twitter began fact-checking the contents of his tweets. The president hit out at social media platforms, stating that Republicans feel that these platforms silence conservative voices and that his administration would either strongly regulate or shut these platforms in the country.
"Republicans feel that social media platforms totally silence conservatives voices. We will strongly regulate, or close them down, before we can ever allow this to happen," Trump tweeted. "We saw what they attempted to do, and failed, in 2016. We can’t let a more sophisticated version of that happen again. Just like we can’t let large scale mail-in ballots take root in our country. It would be a free for all on cheating, forgery and the theft of ballots. Whoever cheated the most would win. Likewise, social media. Clean up your act, NOW!!!!" he added in his tweet.
The Republican denounced social media outlets nearly two hours after two of his tweets claiming mail-in ballots could lead to electoral fraud were flagged by Twitter as 'potentially misleading'. The current coronavirus pandemic has led to a push for the presidential elections in November to he held through mail-in votes. Trump, however, has consistently claimed that mail-in votes would lead to widespread fraud in the polls. Although Trump attacked all social media sites, Twitter is his preferred means of communication as he frequently uses the site to share his thoughts with his 80 million followers.