Nine years ago an 84-year-old Harry Belafonte appeared to fall asleep before he was able to be interviewed by local news. It was fairly relatable. Fast forward to Sunday night and that clip was being used by White House director of social media, Dan Scavino, on his personal account to make a joke about Joe Biden being old/sleepy.
More specifically (since you can't see it anymore) the video showed Biden appearing to fall asleep during a TV interview and then start snoring. It also reportedly had an added-in chyron that said: “On air: Joe Biden, the importance of this election.” The video had 2.4 million views but you can't watch it anymore because the owner of the video made a copyright claim. It was also flagged by Twitter and deemed to be "manipulated media." This tweet was from one of the anchors involved on the morning that Belafonte was eye resting:
While it's unlikely a 93-year-old Belafonte uses his Twitter a whole lot, word apparently got back to him which led to him putting out a statement.
“They keep stooping lower and lower. A technical glitch in an interview I did nine years ago now becomes another one of their lies, more of their fake news. I beg every sane American — please vote them out,” he said according to The New York Times. “I knew many who gave their life for the right to vote. Never has it been so vital to exercise that right.”
Note that Twitter's manipulated media policy was put into place earlier this year in a rare instance of self-awareness in which it seemed to acknowledge how stupid and intellectually incurious a lot of users are.
As for Belafonte, I mean it's news that's not far away from being a decade-old but at the time his publicist echoed what he said above about a technical glitch getting him stuck in freeze frame.
Here's the original:
