The parents of two toddlers featured in a widely popular meme in support of President Trump plan to sue the meme-maker, Carpe Donktum, after the meme was censored by both Facebook and Twitter.
Lawyers for the parents are crafting a lawsuit that claims that the meme was an alteration of an original viral clip of two toddlers embracing and it constitutes "advertisement and political propaganda" and the likenesses of the two toddlers was used without parental consent.
The meme uses the footage of the two boys running down the street, the black boy running in front of the white boy, to satirize the breathless and hysterical coverage of CNN with a purposely misspelled caption reading “Terrified todler runs from racist baby,” then reveal the original video of them embracing in order to deliver the message: “America is not the problem. Fake news is the problem.”
President Trump shared the meme and it was widely praised for its inventiveness and humour.
Forbes reports that "Facebook and Twitter took the video down after the parents of the children filed a copyright complaint, and before that Twitter labeled the video 'manipulated media.'"
“The fact that Twitter and Facebook disabled this fake video within 24 hours of President Trump and his campaign tweeting it, coupled with Twitter permanently banning Cook, is very strong evidence that a jury will likely find that all of these people broke the law by using this video as advertisement and political propaganda,” said attorney Ven Johnson.
Carpe Donktum has defended the meme, correctly pointing out that the video footage was in the public domain. He was also permanently banned from Twitter in a shocking display of censorship and ideological bias on the part of the social media platform.
"Yes, I have been permanently banned from Twitter for 'copyright infringement.' I have always abided by any DCMA takedown I have received. I have NEVER violated a takedown. The most recent takedown was this morning and it was fraudulent. The Toddler video was and is public domain and protected by the law under satire and parody. Thanks for your support," the meme master said this week.
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