Facebook, Twitter divided over Bloomberg's video removal

A video posted by Michael Bloomberg, the aspirant for the Democratic Party's nomination for President, has left Facebook and Twitter divided on whether it violates their policies.

According to The Verge, former New York Mayor Bloomberg's 2020 presidential campaign posted a video to Twitter that was edited to make it appear as "though there was a long, embarrassing silence from Bloomberg's Democratic opponents after he mentioned that he was the only candidate to have ever started a business".

While Twitter said the video would be labelled as manipulated media under the platform's new deepfakes policy, Facebook said the same video would not violate the platform's deepfakes rules.

Facebook's policy "does not extend to content that is parody or satire, or video that has been edited solely to omit or change the order of words".

Earlier this month, Facebook, Twitter and Google-owned YouTube refused to pull down an edited video posted by US President Donald Trump that showed House Speaker Nancy Pelosi ripping up a copy of the former's State of the Union address.

The five-minute video, posted on Trump's social media accounts, shows Pelosi tearing up the speech after Trump honoured several Americans and saluted a Tuskegee airman in the audience.

The fact of the matter is that Pelosi ripped up the speech after Trump concluded his address on an earlier date.

Facebook and Twitter had refused to remove an earlier "deepfake" video of Pelosi that was edited to give the impression she is slurring her words.
IANS