Conservatives pummeled NBC News for a report accusing one conservative social media account of deceptively editing video of speeches from Democratic U.S. Senate candidate John Fetterman to “create the perception that what he was saying was nonsensical.”
The report accused social media platforms of ignoring their own policies “against political misinformation” in allowing the videos to stay up, which conservatives claimed was an attempt on the part of NBC News to sic big tech platforms on users they don’t like.
NBC’s piece comes after weeks of speculation that Fetterman’s gaffes and verbal mistakes are the result of his recovery from a stroke or other health problems.
Some conservatives have suggested that Fetterman’s speaking challenges are what’s keeping him from debating his Republican opponent, Dr. Mehmet Oz. Though the Democratic candidate has recently agreed to a televised debate in late October.
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On Wednesday, NBC News deputy editor of technology Ben Goggin reported, “Deceptively edited videos that have been viewed hundreds of thousands of times on Twitter and TikTok exaggerate the speech issues that have plagued John Fetterman, the Democratic nominee for Pennsylvania’s open U.S. Senate seat, after he had a stroke in May.”
Explaining these alleged edits, the reporter said they consisted of “cutting out the sound of the audience to make it appear as if he had abruptly stopped speaking (some of the stops occurred when he was pausing during moments of applause and crowd reaction, according to unedited videos seen by NBC News).”
“Other edits cut Fetterman off midsentence, to create the perception that what he was saying was nonsensical,” the report added.
Goggin claimed that the videos violate Twitter and TikTok’s policies “against political misinformation,” and the outlet flagged these videos for the platforms itself. However, only TikTok removed them.
“Twitter did not immediately respond to requests for comment. TikTok removed the videos that NBC News flagged to it, citing its ‘integrity and authenticity’ policy, which includes rules about misinformation,” he reported.
The report blamed one prominent Twitter user by name for the proliferation of these “edited” videos. It stated, “The edited videos of Fetterman’s speech Sunday built on the speculation, gaining the most traction on Twitter when it was posted by Greg Price, a senior digital strategist at X Strategies, a conservative political consulting group.”
Goggin added, “One video Price tweeted Monday has over 600,000 views and has been shared hundreds of times. Another video he posted Monday, which cuts out audience audio, has over 120,000 views on Twitter and was accompanied by the caption ‘In case you were wondering why John Fetterman’s handlers won’t let him debate….’
“Price did not respond to specific questions about how the videos were edited,” the reporter continued, adding, “He said in a Twitter message that Fetterman is ‘clearly unfit in every way to serve in the senate.’”
However, on Twitter, Price slammed the reporting, disputing that he edited any of the videos and claiming that the outlet refused to report the full comment he provided NBC.
In a tweet posted Wednesday, Price wrote, “So NBC News decided to accuse me of doctoring videos of John Fetterman that I posted. (I didn’t doctor anything) They also reached out to Twitter to try and get them censored. And the bastards didn’t even include my full comment!”
With his tweet, Price included several screenshots of text from the article as well as an image of an NBC-affiliated account requesting for comment, which Price gave. “I don’t care what you regime propagandists at NBC decide to write about to help your preferred candidate in the race, who is clearly unfit in every way to serve in the senate. You can print that,” Price replied.
“Have a nice day,” he added, to which the account replied, “ok, thank you!”
In subsequent tweets, Price explained how in each of his videos of Fetterman, “nothing is doctored.” In one of them he accused NBC News of trying to censor him for exposing Fetterman’s weaknesses. “Instead of reporting on how Fetterman’s handlers are hiding him from the public as much as they can due to his clear inability to speak properly, NBC News is working with them to try and censor me because I tweeted videos exposing it,” he declared, adding that the outlet consists of “Regime propagandists and enemy of the people.”
He also referred to Goggin as a “liberal hack” and a “loser.”
Other conservatives on the platform provided back up for Price, slamming Goggin’s report.
Students for Trump founder Ryan Fournier tweeted, “This is why no one trusts the media. Total morons if they can’t understand the difference between doctoring a video and cutting it so people don’t have to watch the entire slur parade.”
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Former White House reporter Jim Stinson wrote, “It’s hard to understate how close NBC and MSNBC are to the Democrats. They are practically an auxiliary group of the DNC.”
Breaking; @NBCNews (@COMCAST), working with Chinese-communist @tiktok_us, helps censor videos critical of Democratic candidate Fetterman. #ElectionInterference,” wrote Judicial Watch president Tom Fitton.
And conservative commentator Ian Miles Cheong responded to Price, tweeting, “The regime especially dislikes it when you humiliate them. Like when I posted videos of Antifa burning bibles and they got mad about it and accused me of doctoring the videos.”
