WASHINGTON — A videotape produced by Joseph R. Biden Jr., released by President Trump over the weekend, sparked an online war that plunged Twitter and Facebook into politics The speech is under debate.
The campaign has fought months for misinformation about Biden, and the latest unanimous campaign has played a bigger role as his surge in Democratic primary elections has increased.
In response to this misinformation, technology platforms set new and different rules in political speeches. On Sunday, Twitter tagged Problematic video As manipulated content, Facebook keeps the video intact, without any flagging of fake content.
The video comes from a stump speech by Mr. Biden in Kansas City, Missouri on Saturday. He seemed to be struggling with the sentence and stopped to say, "We can only re-select Donald Trump."
However, Mr. Biden's remaining sentences were selectively deleted. Overall, Mr Biden emphasized the need for Democrats to unite against Mr Trump.
"If we are actually involved in the loop shooting squad here, we can only re-select Donald Trump. This must be an active campaign," he said.
The video that manipulated Mr Biden's speech caused a stir all Saturday.
Mr. Trump's aide, White House Social Media Director Dan Scavino, shared a video on Twitter and Facebook on Saturday.
"Today's sleeping Joe in St. Louis, Missouri:‘ we can only re-elect @realDonaldTrump. “KAG2020LandslideVictory,” Mr. Scarvino wrote with a video link.
Mr. Trump then retweeted Mr. Scarvino's post on Saturday evening. The president's run for reelection did not respond to a request for comment.
The video spread most of the day on Sunday without a response from the social media network. After users tagged the video as Twitter on Sunday, the company said it had determined that the video violated its rules prohibiting composition and manipulation of the video and flagged the video as manipulation content. By then, it had been viewed more than 5 million times and reposted more than 20,000 times.
This is the first time on Twitter Apply the policy announced in February Fight against fake and misleading videos. However, Facebook did not remove or mark the video as false information, which angered Biden's campaign.
"Regarding the handling of blatantly false information, Facebook's malfeasance is a national crisis in this regard," Biden's campaign manager Greg Schultz said in a statement.
He added: "It is also unreasonable to place profits not only outside our country but also above each country," he added. "Facebook doesn't say that, but it's obvious to everyone who has checked their behavior and policies: they care about money first and for this they are willing to be one of the most effective media in the world to spread a mean lie. "
Mr Biden's campaign Complaining about fake online ads in Trump's re-election Previously, the ads began running on Facebook and other social media starting last October, claiming that Mr. Biden had bribed the Ukrainian government to prevent investigations into Mr. Biden's son.
Facebook declined to remove the video, saying false statements by politicians and their campaigns were seen as important aspects of political speech. Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg passes Georgetown University Speech on Free Expression In October last year, he explained that political speeches are one of the most censored forms of discourse and it is important for the public to listen to politicians, including lies.
Facebook did not immediately respond to a request for comment.