Logan Cook, aka @CarpeDonktum, has retained attorney Ron Coleman to defend him in a potential lawsuit over a video Cook created and posted on Twitter that mocked the mainstream press.
Cook altered a video that shows two young boys, one black and one white, running towards each other, hugging, and then running off together to play.
Logan edited the video to show the two boys running away from each other with a caption that read “Terrified Todler [sic] Runs From Racist Baby,” intimating that there was racial strife between the two. It then shows the original context: that the two boys were actually friends, hugged and were running off to play with one another. The caption then reads, “America is not the problem…fake news is.”
President Trump retweeted the video soon after it was posted.
That exercise in satire got Cook hit with a copyright infringement notice over the video and, within hours, permanently banned from Twitter.
Twitter says Cook has repeatedly violated the platform’s copyright infringement policy. “Per our copyright policy, we respond to valid copyright complaints sent to us by a copyright owner or their authorized representatives,” Twitter told The Daily Beast. “The account was permanently suspended for repeated violations of this policy.”
Cook is famous for making memes that usually have Democrats and the mainstream media as their targets and has been retweeted often by President Trump.
Now it seems the parents of the toddlers in the video are planning to file a lawsuit against President Trump and Cook for use of the video as an “advertisement and political propaganda” without permission.
Ven Johnson, one of the lawyers representing the parents, told Forbes “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.”
As of the time of this writing a lawsuit has actually yet to be filed though.
Coleman was thanked by users on Twitter for taking Cook’s case and helping to defend him from the potential lawsuit. “I will stand next to anyone balder and shorter than I am,” Coleman replied.
I will stand next to anyone balder and shorter than I am
— Ron Coleman (@RonColeman) June 26, 2020