Former President Donald J. Trump has officially launched his social networking platform, TRUTH Social. The Former President has proposed TRUTH Social as a solution to “Big Tech” censorship and constraints. Big Tech censorship is an issue which President Trump had championed throughout his term. Trump has encouraged the creation of censorship free platforms for the right wing after his accounts were blocked by Facebook and Twitter.
“A small handful of social media monopolies controls a vast portion of all public and private communications in the United States… They’ve had unchecked power to censor, restrict, edit, shape, hide, alter, virtually any form of communication between private citizens and large public audiences.”
President Donald J. Trump – May 28th, 2020
TRUTH Social, a platform created by the Trump owned Trump Media & Technology Group (TMTG), has proposed an “engaging and censorship-free experience.” However, TRUTH social is far from the first platform to profit from the former President’s anti-Big Tech agitprop. After the January 6th Insurrection, platforms popular on the right like Gab, Gettr, Rumble, and Telegram saw massive boosts in their userbases. These boosts were a direct response to President Trump’s January 8th banning from Twitter and Facebook. Yet in the year following, userbases for the Right-wing alternatives stagnated and declined. The absence of Trump on the platforms or controversy following sensitive data breaches have been cited as partial explanations for the failures of the sites, alongside Trump’s base losing momentum after January 6th.
On February 15th, Donald Trump Jr. shared a screenshot on Twitter which he claimed to be his father’s first tweet on the TRUTH Social. This early visual displays a near exact replica of Twitter’s post UI, with some adjusted colors. Trump’s presence on TRUTH Social should make it the successful social media alternative for Trump’s base.
On Monday, February 21st, TRUTH Social officially launched on the Apple App Store to a rocky start. TRUTH Social shot to Number 1 on the Apple App Store but then dropped to as low as Number 57 only a week later. Users of the app have been experiencing issues, including error messages when attempting to signup, and an inability for signed up users to access their accounts.
The app has been criticized due for being an echo chamber. Republican Rep. Adam Kinzinger stated that it will be “boring and fail” full of “Trump-fed drones”.
TRUTH Social had to place users on waitlists due to “massive demand.” However, many Right-wing figureheads have been able to successfully access the app. Sean Hannity, Dan Bongino, and Charlie Kirk have been able to access the app, along with Congress members Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) and Madison Cawthorn (R-N.C.). Cawthorn and Greene shared screenshots of their TRUTH Social accounts on Twitter, showcasing another exact copy of Twitter UI but with new colors. Twitter has not yet made a statement on if they will take action on the potential copyright infringement by TRUTH Social.
The TRUTH Social has been an economic success despite its rough launch. Digital World Acquisition Corp. (DWAC), which is merging with TMTG to take TRUTH Social public, has seen their stock prices reach their highest levels in months. On Tuesday, February 22, the day after TRUTH Social’s launch, DWAC stocks reached a high of $99, a 17% increase from Friday’s closing numbers. DWAC had last seen similar numbers in October of 2021, when TRUTH Social was announced, where stock prices reached $175. Donald Trump and his company are on track to obtain over a billion dollars from this merger if approved by the Securities and Exchange Commission and the US Financial Industry Regulatory Authority, a process which can take months.
