Uh, oh. Donald Trump is in big trouble now. Thus far, he has been committed to tearing down this great nation. He fires a poison bullet into the crowds of Americans to ignite their fears and ignite white nationalists’ permission. As usual, the bullet ricochets from the real coronavirus problem into his totally invented problem of riots burning down Democratically-led cities. But one of his talking heads just got caught by the biggest bird of all — Twitter.
House Minority Whip Steve Scalise (R-LA) put out a manipulated video showing a progressive activist doing an interview of Joe Biden on funding. Scalise deleted his manipulated tweet Sunday night, but the damage does not take long to happen in the internet age.
This video was edited then spliced together to show a fake Ady Barkan conversation. He acquired the disability of Louis Gehrig’s disease (ALS). Both the original and the tainted video shows him speaking in his computerized artificial voice, talking with the former VP.
Scalise injected the manipulated video to say:
‘But do we agree that we can redirect some of the funding for police?’
Scalise showed the manipulated video, adding the words “for police” from another source and splicing the two words in at the end of the video.
The original video shows Barkan asking Biden whether he can agree:
‘But do we agree that we can redirect some of the funding?’
Biden responds in the affirmative, “Yes.”
The fake clip tweeted out by the number two Republican in the House had spliced in the words to make it sound as if Barkan is asking Biden whether he agrees they can “redirect some of the funding for police.”
Scalise used the tweet to “prove” that Democrats are responsible for “sowing unrest” when it has been Trump in that role. He added to the tweet:
‘No police. Mob rule. Total chaos. That’s the result of the Democrat agenda.’
Barkan immediately called the representative demanding he take down the altered video:
‘These are not my words. I have lost my ability to speak, but not my agency or my thoughts. You and your team have doctored my words for your own political gain. Please remove this video immediately. You owe the entire disability community an apology.’
A Twitter spokesperson said they pulled the tweet due to its “Synthetic and Manipulated Media policy:”
‘The issue with the video was the audio manipulation of Barkan, originally adding words to the audio Barkan didn’t say in that context.’
Facebook apparently took no action, but House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-NY) hit the tweet hard:
‘Congressman Scalise must take his doctored video down and apologize immediately.’
Biden also demanded that the tweet be removed:
‘This video is doctored — and a flagrant attempt to spread misinformation at the expense of a man who uses assistive technology. It should be removed. Now.’
If Trump surrogates pull this too often, the president might lose his Twitter rights. Then, what would he do?
‘There’s a clip here of @AdyBarkan, who has ALS and speaks via voice assistance, asking Biden about “re-directing” public safety funding. The clip alters the quote. It splices “for police” into it, using Barkan’s artificial voice.’
The second tweet is unavailable, because it had been removed, appropriately.
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