Twitter Slaps ‘Manipulated Media’ Label on Lincoln Project’s Response to Trump Campaign’s Manipulated Video
Twitter hit the anti-Trump Lincoln Project with a “Manipulated Media” tag for a video that was, itself, a self-evident response to a “manipulated” video from the presidential campaign of President Donald Trump.
On Tuesday, the Lincoln Project posted clips from Trump’s recent Laura Ingraham interview under the caption “No one is safe in Donald Trump’s America,” which included Ingraham uttering those words, and Trump appearing to agree “No, it’s terrible!”
The video then cuts together Trump describing violence and other bits from the interview.
Since Ingraham was actually quoting former Vice President Joe Biden during that interview, Twitter slapped the tweet with a “Manipulated Media” tag.
No one is safe in Donald Trump’s America pic.twitter.com/Cb1HW7WXwe
— The Lincoln Project (@ProjectLincoln) September 1, 2020
That video was a response to a Trump campaign video which cut a 3-second snippet of Biden — who was similarly quoting his opponent in the fuller context — saying “You won’t be safe in Joe Biden’s America!”
Joe Biden says “You won’t be safe in Joe Biden’s America!” pic.twitter.com/wSKe4N1XzF
— Trump War Room – Text TRUMP to 88022 (@TrumpWarRoom) August 31, 2020
Twitter labeled both videos “Manipulated Media,” which is probably a lot simpler than coming up with separate labels for satirical trolling, but they are not the same. The Trump campaign’s edit was captioned with the specific false claim that “Joe Biden says ‘You won’t be safe in Joe Biden’s America!'”, while the Lincoln Project left it to viewers to interpret what was implicitly presented as satire.
Intentionally or not, the effect of Twitter’s action will likely be to draw attention to the point that the Lincoln Project’s video was trying to make — that the Trump campaign’s false edit was a desperate attempt to deflect from the situation under the current administration’s tenure.
