Iconic rockers R.E.M. are being hailed as the heroes the world needs right now, having managed to achieve the impossible task of removing a Tweet by Donald Trump.
If you’ve spent even a second of time online in the past few years, you’d likely be aware of the contentious character that US President Donald Trump is.
While America’s head of state is a controversial figure already, his penchant for running his mouth on Twitter has garnered quite a bit of criticism.
In fact, sometimes his Tweeting has become so egregious that Twitter themselves have been forced to comment, revealing the reasoning behind their decision not to ban Trump from the service.
Likewise, we’ve also seen numerous artists voice their opinions in recent months and years over how Donald Trump has used their music without permission.
While artists such as Neil Young, Prince, The Rolling Stones, Aerosmith, and Adele have all criticised the President, it seems that in most cases, they’ve been unlucky in their endeavours to halt his unauthorised musical use.
Now, it seems as though one band has done the impossible, with R.E.M. managing to silence Donald Trump’s musical usage and his Twitter account.
As CNBC reports, Donald Trump’s official Twitter account yesterday shared a mocking Tweet set to the music of R.E.M.’s 1992 track, ‘Everybody Hurts’.
The video showed a number of Democratic politicians looking upset, and was intended to attack their political beliefs in the wake of Trump’s declaration of a national emergency.
However, R.E.M. did not see the funny side of this Tweet, imploring their followers to get the video removed. “World Leader PRETEND!!!,” they wrote, referencing their song of the same name. “Congress, Media–ghost this faker!!!”
World Leader PRETEND!!! Congress, Media–ghost this faker!!! Love, R.E.M. @realDonaldTrump https://t.co/KlqXrvRZ4D
— R.E.M. HQ (@remhq) February 16, 2019
The assholes @CarpeDonktum created the meme. #PresidentAsshole retweeted it. Measures have been taken to stop it. @jack you need to get on this.
— Sweet Daddy Cool 🦃🍁🍂✌️🇺🇦 🐕🇨🇦 (@m_millsey) February 15, 2019
Winning? https://t.co/At7Hx4lFS4
— Sweet Daddy Cool 🦃🍁🍂✌️🇺🇦 🐕🇨🇦 (@m_millsey) February 16, 2019
Soon though, it appears that the inner-workings of the music industry worked their magic, with a lawyer for Universal Music Publishing Group asking Twitter to take down the video due to it infringing on the artist’s copyright.
Soon, the content of Donald Trump’s Tweet was unavailable, with users being met with a message that read, “This video has been removed in response to a report from the copyright holder.”
A Tweet by R.E.M. bassist Mike Mills later confirmed the video’s removal, sharing an image of Trump’s Tweet, which now featured the words “Content is not available” in place of the original video.
While other artists have been unsuccessful in their attempts to get Donald Trump to stop using their music in rallies, maybe R.E.M.’s recent success might serve as a sign of things to come?