News

Skittles image removed from Trump Jr. tweet

by Jesse Byrnes - 09/28/16 11:28 AM ET

The image Donald Trump Jr. used in a controversial tweet comparing Syrian refugees to Skittles has been removed after a copyright complaint was filed.

Trump’s tweet remains on his timeline, but the image and corresponding graphic have been replaced by text indicating it was removed in response to “a report from the copyright holder.”

{mosads}David Kittos, a British photographer who had posted the photograph of a bowl of Skittles on Flickr in 2010, said he didn’t give Trump Jr. permission to use the image.

“I am very glad it’s down, and it shouldn’t have been up in the first place,” the photographer told the BBC after the image was removed.

Kittos, who said he arrived in the United Kingdom as a refugee in the 1970s from Cyprus, told the news outlet that he had retained a Chicago-based lawyer over the issue.

Trump Jr.’s Sep. 19 tweet was widely shared across social media and in news reports earlier this month and ignited a political firestorm among critics of his father, Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump.

Text alongside the image asked readers if they would take a handful of Skittles knowing that “just three would kill you,” comparing it to the influx of Syrian refugees into the United States.

“This image says it all. Let’s end the politically correct agenda that doesn’t put America first,” Trump Jr. wrote in his tweet, prompting Kittos to file the copyright claim.

A spokeswoman for Wrigley, the maker of Skittles, had issued a statement saying that the company didn’t find Trump’s analogy appropriate, saying, “Skittles are candy. Refugees are people.”

Tags Donald Trump