YouTube appears to be the only major social media platform actively working to remove doctored videos of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi that make the California Democrat appear drunk, Talking Points Memo reports. YouTube is removing the videos, indicating that they violate site policies.
“YouTube has clear policies that outline what content is not acceptable to post and we remove videos violating these policies when flagged to us. These videos violated our policies and have been removed. They also did not surface prominently. In fact, search results and watch next panels about Nancy Pelosi include videos from authoritative sources, usually at the top,” said a spokesperson for the company.
Other platforms, such as Facebook and Twitter, have so far not taken similar action.
“We remove things from Facebook that violate our Community Standards, and we don’t have a policy that stipulates that the information you post on Facebook must be true,” said a Facebook spokesperson in a prepared statement. According to reports, however, the company is working to deprioritize the videos in terms of how frequently they appear in the newsfeeds of users and adding fact-checking content to clarify the deceptive nature of the videos.
A spokesperson from Twitter declined to comment, but various versions of the video remain present on the platform and do not appear to be in the process of being removed.
How Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter dealt with the doctored video of Pelosi may serve as a warning of what’s to come in 2020. https://t.co/5jP9GobCma
— Los Angeles Times (@latimes) May 25, 2019
The video in question originates from a speech that Pelosi made earlier in the week. The audio is slowed down to make it appear that the congresswoman is intoxicated to the point of slurring her words.
Also reported by Talking Points Memo , Republicans, including President Donald Trump himself, were quick to capitalize on the viral buzz around Pelosi, piling onto the emerging narrative that she was suffering from a lack of mental clarity. In a press conference on Thursday, the president described the speaker as “deteriorating” and said that she has “lost it.”
Additionally, Trump shared on Twitter a video compilation put together by Fox Business where Pelosi was shown in a variety of unflattering clips in which she appeared to stumble over her words. The show’s hosts debated Pelosi’s mental state.
Trump’s personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, likewise took aim at Pelosi. In a since-deleted tweet, Giuliani shared the doctored video, calling her speech pattern bizarre and asking what was wrong with her.
In a similar fashion, former Trump campaign manager Corey Lewandowski also weighed in, appearing on Fox Business and saying that Pelosi had been slurring her words lately.
