“If I were to run, I’d run as a Republican. They’re the dumbest group of voters in the country. They believe anything on Fox News. I could lie and they’d still eat it up. I bet my numbers would be terrific.”
Going on YouTube to find the video now returns zero results. Searching Facebook where it was initially shared returns the same thing. Yet these searches harbor hundreds of comments from other people stating that they too have seen the video which has seemingly gone missing, as seen here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AZtfSIgsH1o, and here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-NtE8GISBhM , etc.
Which raises the following questions:
- Why aren't all of Trumps full interviews available anywhere? 3 minute clips of Oprah are cute, but not full factual interviews. (copyright arguments would be waived as the information now falls under fair use: http://fairuse.stanford.edu/overview/fair-use/four-factors/, however YouTube takes things down at anyones request as their system is so broken it spawned numerous protests that even got the CEOs attention (#WTFU, #MakeYouTubeGreatAgain, etc.))
- If YouTube's claim system is this easily exploitable and copyright was stopping Oprah, Howard Stern and the like from being uploaded, why are selective parts from those interviews that paint Trump in a positive light the only ones allowed to stay? Last time I checked, Fair Use for things like educational purposes didn't just cover the parts of them that make someone look good (see: Coke/Pepsi branding laws in movies.)
- Why is the quote in question suddenly being attributed to People Magazine when the words were spoken on video?
- Why, if the video does hopefully turn up, were Google's search results hiding everything as far back as 1993?
- Why again, if the quote supposedly came from People Magazine, is - "Trump republicans ...'are stupid'" - the number one most-searched autocomplete result on YouTube, the place people go to find videos?
- The idea that a video is being copyright flagged on both YouTube and Facebook the instant it's uploaded is not out of the realm of possibility. There's a reason finding SNL clips is so hard.
- The misattribution of the quote (to People Magazine, instead of the original videos source) is a tactic that has been around for decades used to fool people into thinking something didn't happen/wasn't true and - it's more important purpose - to stop people who actually do their research from researching the given subject further and deter them from finding out what truly happened.
- The obvious argument that Trump calling people names is virtually his campaign slogan at this point so the idea of him saying something that harsh/that way is absolutely within said realm of possibility.
- The peculiar fact that it appears as if no one has even raised the question of whether or not the quote was true on Reddit.
- And arguably the biggest issue, of whether or not the ecosystems involved (YouTube, Google, Facebook...) have become closed enough - and the public has become comfortable enough - to truly let something "disappear" in 2016. (Shoutouts to /r/news.)
