President Trump’s vendetta against CNN continued Thursday evening, and the latest example is especially weird.
Many will recall the viral video from September of last year showing two toddlers, a Black boy and a white boy, running toward each other and giving one another a big hug. After the hug, the Black boy ran past the white boy and the white boy tried to catch up to his friend.
A cute moment.
A supporter of the president doctored the viral video, showing first the white toddler running after the Black toddler, accompanied by a fake CNN logo with the chyron: “Terrified Todler Runs From Racist Baby.” Then the chyron changed to: “Racist Baby Probably a Trump Voter.”
Trump tweeted it out:
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 19, 2020
It goes without saying that CNN did not depict the story in this manner. There’s also the fact that CNN’s chyrons don’t look like what’s shown in the video, and toddler is spelled incorrectly.
From CNN comms department:
CNN did cover this story – exactly as it happened. Just as we reported your positions on race (and poll numbers). We’ll continue working with facts rather than tweeting fake videos that exploit innocent children. We invite you to do the same. Be better. https://t.co/T1nBtejZta
— CNN Communications (@CNNPR) June 19, 2020
Perhaps the most interesting part of this story, however, is how Twitter reacted to the tweet. It labeled Trump‘s fake CNN tweet as “manipulated media.” According to our Adweek colleague Scott Nover, this is in line with company guidelines.
Twitter just slapped a “manipulated media” tag on @realDonaldTrump’s tweet with a fake CNN logo/chyron. It links out to the policy here: https://t.co/4vpXXpUqLJ pic.twitter.com/4iSlrKwYAZ
— Scott Nover (@ScottNover) June 19, 2020
As of publication time, the doctored video has almost 8 million views.
It remains to be seen whether the caretakers of these toddlers track down the actual creator of the video and take legal action.
UPDATE: The toddlers’ fathers told Don Lemon on CNN Tonight yesterday that he was “very upset as to what was portrayed and who was portraying this.” The other father added, “it was just so hurtful to see this video made of love and with the hopes to inspire hope amongst everyone out there. It was, you know, I just — I could not believe what we were watching. And you know, our phone was blowing up with everyone just reaching out for us to let us know.
“We immediately started acting on it, and tried to, you know, go through the steps — proper steps to have it removed.”