Washington: Twitter applied its new "manipulated media" label for the first time on Sunday to a deceptively edited video of former vice-president Joe Biden. The video was shared by White House social media director Dan Scavino and retweeted by President Donald Trump.

US President Donald Trump. Credit:Bloomberg

The video was the first test of a new policy the social media company implemented on Thursday to label tweets that contain manipulated or synthetic media, ranging from edited videos to more sophisticated examples known as "deepfakes" that can fabricate events that never happened.

In this case, the altered video of Biden, who has surged to the front of the Democratic race to oust Trump in November, is based on a speech he gave in Kansas City, Missouri, on Saturday. It was shared on Twitter by Scavino, only edited to make it appear as if Biden inadvertently endorsed Trump for re-election.

The version of the video shared by Scavino showed Biden stumbling on a line during a speech, then saying, "Excuse me. We can only re-elect Donald Trump."