U.S President Donald Trump shared a video that featured a Black child being chased by a white child. The video labeled the white child as a "racist baby." The video then cut to a scene where it showed what really happened, the two toddlers ran towards each other and hugged.
Was the video real?
Hours after Trump retweeted the video, it was taken down by Twitter. According to Twitter's rules, they will label tweets that contain manipulated media.
This is their way to help the public understand if the video or the post is authentic or not. This is now the fourth time that the social media platform had flagged the tweet of the President. Journalists also tweeted and confirmed that the video that the President shared was edited and doctored. CNN confirmed that the video was fake.
What was in the video?
The video was a minute long, it had ominous music and it showed a Black toddler running away from a white toddler. The banner showed the logo of the news company CNN and it read "Terrified toddler runs from a racist baby. Racist baby probably a Trump voter."
Around 11 seconds, the line "What actually happened" popped up. It then showed a clip of the boys running towards each other excitedly then hugging afterward. The video ends with the text "America is not the problem. Fake news is. If you see something, say something. Only you can prevent fake news dumpster fires."
The real story behind the footage was originally covered by CNN back in September 2019 with the title "These two toddlers are showing us what real-life besties look like."
The video was taken in New York City last year, and it was originally posted on Facebook by Michael Cisneros, who is the father of one of the toddlers.
According to Cisneros, he decided to post the heartwarming video because, despite all the hate and racism that is going on in the country, there are still some beautiful moments. Twitter and Facebook users had shared the video and it quickly went viral, proving that racism is taught.
Now, Cisneros, had asked Twitter and Facebook to take the video down as it is now used as a tool to add more tension between the races in the country.
After President Trump posted the edited version of the viral video of the children, journalists immediately called it out and said that it was fake. CNN then responded to President Trump via Twitter telling him to "Be better."
The version of the video that President Trump tweeted had more than 16 million views and it has been retweeted for more than 180,000 times. The edited video appears to be watermarked with "@CarpeDonktum." The Twitter user is a Trump supporter.
On June 19, White House Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany said that the found the video funny. CNN's chief White House correspondent, Jim Acosta, then added that it seems like Trump is using children to make a political point in which McEnany said that Trump was making a point about CNN.
