Twitter confirmed that it removed a campaign video President Trump had retweeted Saturday over a copyright complaint. The Linkin Park song “In the End” was featured in the background of the video, which included images of President Trump and excerpts from his inauguration speech.
“Per our copyright policy, we respond to valid copyright complaints sent to us by copyright owner or their authorized representative,” a Twitter spokesperson said in an email to The Verge on Sunday.
The band tweeted Saturday that it was pursuing a “cease and desist” and that it had not authorized use of its song in the video: “Linkin Park did not and does not endorse Trump.”
Linkin Park did not and does not endorse Trump, nor authorize his organization to use any of our music. A cease and desist has been issued.
— LINKIN PARK (@linkinpark) July 19, 2020
The copyright notice has been posted to the nonprofit transparency initiative Lumen Database.
White House deputy chief of staff for communications Dan Scavino tweeted the video Friday evening and President Trump’s official Twitter retweeted it Saturday. The retweet is no longer visible on the president’s Twitter feed, but Scavino’s original tweet is still live as of Sunday morning (minus the video).
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It’s not the first time Twitter has taken action against one of Trump’s tweets over a copyright complaint. Last month, it disabled a four-minute campaign video that included images of George Floyd, the Minneapolis man who died May 25th after a police officer kneeled on his neck. Facebook and Instagram removed posts from their platforms that featured the video. The president called the removal “illegal,” in a tweet, but Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey responded: “Not true and not illegal. This was pulled because we got a DMCA complaint from copyright holder.”
Trump has had other tweets flagged by Twitter that it said ran afoul of its content policies. In May, the social media platform added a label to a tweet where Trump warned “when the looting starts, the shooting starts,” because Twitter said the tweet violated its policy against glorifying violence. A June tweet by the president featuring a doctored video was labeled as “manipulated media.”
The Trump campaign did not immediately return a request for comment Sunday.
