Logan Cook, known as "Carpe Donktum" online, was briefly suspended from Twitter on Monday amid controversy about a meme created by a contributor for his website, Meme World. He was brought back online about an hour later.
Cook said the video that triggered the copyright takedown was a Super Bowl commercial posted in early February 2018.
"What they told me in the email is that I was suspended for copyright infringement," Cook told his followers on Periscope after getting his account reinstated. "It was an indefinite or permanent suspension, but it was obviously reversed."
A Twitter spokesperson confirmed that Cook's account was suspended due to a copyright complaint sent to them by a copyright owner or authorized representative.
According to the DMCA notice, Cook's account was part of a complaint made by Universal Music Group. Cook was one of 25 Twitter accounts listed. The complaint was sent on Monday. The video was described by Cook as a "Super Bowl Commercial Parody," that was one of his favorite videos of 2018.
Cook has gained notoriety in the last year for his GIFs and videos that have become a staple of the pro-Trump subreddit r/The_Donald and have even been tweeted by the president himself. Cook was invited to the White House in July for a “social media summit,” joining fellow far-right activists and influencers, including QAnon-supporting radio host Bill Mitchell, fringe social media huckster Ali Alexander, Project Veritas founder James O'Keefe, founder of Turning Point USA Charlie Kirk, and former BuzzFeed News reporter and current chief creative officer for Turning Point USA Benny Johnson.
Capitalizing on his right-wing popularity, Cook recently launched Meme World, a website and basic social network for sharing right-wing and far-right memes.
Cook and the Meme World community became the center of a New York Times story Monday; over the weekend, a video from a Meme World contributor was played during the American Priority Festival and Conference at Trump National Doral Miami Resort.
The video, created by an obscure YouTube channel called TheGeekzTeam, was included in a "meme exhibit" showcasing pro-Trump memes. The video, titled "The Trumpsmen: The Maga Service," uses edited footage from the movie Kingsman: The Secret Service to portray President Trump violently gunning down avatars of mainstream media outlets. It was originally uploaded to YouTube last year and shared to r/The_Donald.
TheGeekzTeam's Twitter account remains active.
You may remember geekzteam from this very special Ben Garrison effort, which handily sketches the milieu the channel inhabits https://t.co/sYSkSfudt0
Both AMP Fest organizers and the White House condemned the video following the New York Times report.
"It has come to our attention that an unauthorized video was show in a side room at #AMPFest19," AMP Fest organizers said in a statement Monday. "We find it shocking that the New York Times would not report on any of the sanctioned events in the article."
The White House on Monday said President Trump “strongly condemns” the video. "The @POTUS @realDonaldTrump has not yet seen the video, he will see it shortly, but based upon everything he has heard, he strongly condemns this video," White House spokesperson Stephanie Grisham tweeted Monday.
Cook, however, defended the video. In an official statement posted to Twitter and Meme World, Cook called the controversy an "outrage campaign."
"The Kingsman video is CLEARLY satirical and the violence depicted is metaphoric," Cook wrote. "No reasonable person would believe that this video was a call to action, or an endorsement of violence towards the media. The only person that could potentially be 'incited' by this video is Donald Trump himself, as the main character of the video is him. THERE IS NO CALL TO ACTION."
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