Social media giants Facebook and Twitter have refused to accept the demand of the office of the United States House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to remove a doctored video shared by President Donald Trump on both the platforms, reports CNBC.
Earlier on Tuesday (4 February) night, House Speaker Pelosi, while standing behind President Trump, had ripped his State Of The Union (SOTU) speech. The video of the incident had gone viral over the social media.
However, President Trump on Friday (7 January) shared an edited version of the video titled ‘POWERFUL AMERICAN STORIES RIPPED TO SHREDS BY NANCY PELOSI’, whicch showed Pelosi ripping the speech even as Trump saluted a Tuskegee airman in the audience. The video repeatedly shows Pelosi’s act after every story that Trump shares.
Pelosi’s speech-ripping gesture, however, came at the end of the Trump’s speech, and her office said it was in response to the totality of the speech and what Pelosi saw as misinformation in it.
Soon after Trump shared the edited version of the video online, the speaker’s office demanded both the social media companies to take down the video, arguing it was unfair to Pelosi.
However, both Facebook and Twitter decided against removing the Trump video citing different reasons for their decisions.
Facebook spokesperson Andy Stone said that the video shared by Trump did not violate the company’s policies.
Stone said the company’s policies against altered video specifically refer to video that has been edited to make it appear a person said something they didn’t say or did something they didn’t do.
Twitter also said that it will not remove the video under its current rules.