Rep. Paul Gosar, R-Ariz., is under fire for a photo-manipulated video he posted on his Twitter account on Sunday, with congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., slamming him as "creepy".
The altered roughly 90-second video depicts him and other Republican lawmakers, including Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia and Lauren Boebert of Colorado, as heroes from the post-apocalyptic Japanese anime series "Attack on Titan".
The face of Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is superimposed on one of the “Titans” killed by a character in the footage, while another depicts an attack on a “Titan” bearing the image of President Joe Biden. “Any anime fans out there?” wrote Gosar in a caption accompanying the posted video, which also spliced footage of migrants at the border.
Twitter had attached a warning to the tweet saying that it “violated the Twitter Rules about hateful conduct.” However, the platform had allowed the post to stay up, after determining “it may be in the public's interest for the Tweet to remain accessible.''
In a tweet on 8 November, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez referred to Gosar as a “creepy member I work with'' and said he “shared a fantasy video of him killing me.'' She deplored the fact that Gosar would face no consequences as because Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy “cheers him on with excuses.''
The Arizona congressman and staunch ally of former President Donald Trump was also censured by fellow House Democrat, Ted Lieu of California, who saw Gosar's tweet as “sick behavior''.
Many users also commented on the anime-like post by Gosar.
Some users looked upon the controversial post with a wry humour.
Others thought that Twitter’s decision not to remove the post was offensive.