Why Twitter Removed Donald Trump’s Photo Of Himself
President Donald Trump posted a photo of himself to his Twitter account this week but had it removed after finding himself on the receiving end of a copyright complaint. The 45th president of the United States, who’s made no secret of his love for the social media site, violated the company’s copyright policy with the photo he shared with his 82.6 million followers on Tuesday, June 30.
While the photo remained up for several hours, as reported by The Hill, it was taken down after Twitter received a complaint from the New York Times Co. on Wednesday, July 1.
The photo in question was a black-and-white snap of the businessman-turned-president and was taken by New York Times staff photographer Damon Winter. The picture originally appeared in a profile piece the publication ran on the current president back in October 2015.
According to the site, New York Times Co. filed a takedown request under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act after seeing that Trump had used the photo on social media without its permission. The company, therefore, claimed that the president’s post had infringed copyright rules.
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 30, 2020
A spokesperson for Twitter explained to The Hill that the company addresses “valid copyright complaints sent to us by a copyright owner or their authorized representatives.”
While the tweet itself is still visible on Trump’s Twitter account, the photo attachment is not.
Instead, when users click on the tweet, a gray box appears alongside a notice it is no longer displayed “in response to a report from the copyright holder.”
Trump — who also found himself in the firing line once again on Twitter from singer Pink this week — originally uploaded the photo of himself alongside the words, “In reality, they’re not after me, they’re after you. I’m just in the way.”
The tweet has received over 334,700 likes and more than 103,000 retweets, as well as plenty of comments from Trump’s supporters and critics alike.
But this certainly isn’t the first time President Trump has found himself in hot water over something he posted on social media, nor is it the first time one of his uploads has been removed for copyright infringement.
Twitter has previously placed a fact check label on a number of Trump’s tweets, including a doctored video he posted of two children last month. It featured a fake headline that read, “Terrified Todler [sic] Runs From Racist Baby.”
Shortly after it was uploaded, Twitter added the warning label that noted it was “Manipulated Media.” The video has since been removed completely and replaced with the note, “This media has been disabled in response to a report by the copyright owner.”
