Posts calling out “Beef” star David Choe and sharing the 2014 podcast clip in which he detailed self-proclaimed “rapey behavior” have been taken down from Twitter since criticism renewed this month.
The tweets included clips from a 2014 episode of his now-defunct podcast, “DVDASA,” and were removed from Twitter on Sunday after they were labeled with a “report from the copyright holder” notice. The clips included Choe’s telling a graphic story about a masseuse that has been criticized as describing rape and sexual assault. He later asserted that the story was a fabrication.
An email obtained by NBC News, sent from Twitter and addressed to Meecham Whitson Meriweather — one of two social media users whose tweets were removed — listed Choe as the copyright holder and party who had requested the takedown. In the request, included in the email, Choe wrote that the clips had been shared “without our consent.”
“We would like to have these videos removed immediately,” said the request, which specifically cited tweets from Meriweather and fellow Twitter user Aura Bogado.
Neither Twitter nor Choe responded to requests for comment. After the controversial podcast in 2014, Choe denied the story, saying in a statement that the podcast is “a complete extension of my art.”
“I never thought I’d wake up one late afternoon and hear myself called a rapist. It sucks. Especially because I am not one. I am not a rapist. I hate rapists,” he wrote in the 2014 statement. Multiple news outlets at the time reported on his response, which was posted on the podcast’s now-defunct website.
The Twitter email, which also listed the David Young Choe Foundation as Choe’s company, informed Meriweather that his tweet had been taken down because of a “DMCA takedown notice,” a reference to the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, which protects copyright holders from online theft. However, several Twitter users said the tweets’ removal was an attempt by…
Read the full article here
