Truth Social is a social media platform created by Trump Media & Technology Group, an American media and technology company founded by former US President Donald Trump in October 2021.
The Truth Social platform was the result of former US President Donald Trump’s suffering with the famous social media platforms, especially his favorite platform “Twitter”, after it was banned on it and on the “Facebook” platform after the Capitol attack in the United States in 2021.
The platform started offering its services on February 21, 2022. Since its launch, the platform has struggled with audience issues, resulting in a lower than expected user base.
Until May 2022, the service was only available via the app on iPhones only and was only accessible to users in the US and Canada.
The service then launched a web application to access the service, allowing users of any Internet browser to access the site, although access is still geographically restricted.
But has Truth Social been able to keep up with the major social networks?
The Trump platform began providing its services on February 21, 2022 (Reuters)
Truth Social and Facebook and Twitter competition
Announcing Trump's platform, The New York Times described Trump's platform as an addition to the field of alternative technology platforms that already exist.
BBC journalist James Clayton stated that the platform could be a more successful version of other social media platforms with alternative technology such as Parler and Gap, an attempt by Trump to reclaim Its popularity in the social media space.
Gettr CEO Jason Miller, a former Trump adviser, praised TruthSocial's platform, saying it would cause Facebook and Twitter to lose more market share.
But all of these hopes evaporated after the platform found great difficulties in launching, as Rolling stone noted that while TruthSocial promises to be an open and free platform, the terms of service include a clause stating that users cannot be taken lightly. service or objection to it.
Jason Miller, a former adviser to Trump, said that the platform would lead to Facebook and Twitter losing more of their stakes (Reuters)
The mechanism of Truth Social and the services it provides
Truth Social is modeled heavily on Twitter, where users can create posts called Truths, similar to Tweets, and repost other users' posts (ReTruths) similar to Retweets.
The platform uses an upgraded version of the free and open source social networking hosting software Mastodon as its backend, which ignores several features, including surveys and post-visibility options, and this was the cause of a lawsuit against the Trump group on October 21, 2021. The Software Freedom Conservancy said it suspected TrueSocial had violated Mastodon's license by not providing the source code to all users.
Content Policies
Truth Social presented itself as a platform and a “big tent” without political censorship when launched, allowing for “freedom of expression,” according to the platform’s description.
It said in its terms of service when the company was first announced in October 2021 that the company would not be legally responsible for the "content, abuse, opinions [or] reliability" of anything users might post to the service.
Some commentators have pointed out that this self-declared immunity appears to be based on Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, a law that Trump vehemently opposed during his presidency.
The terms of service also added that users are prohibited from "disparaging, misrepresenting or harming in any way, in our opinion, we and/or the Site" and said they have the right to "suspend or terminate your account" and also "take appropriate legal action."
Truth Social has banned accounts for behavior it considers harmful or inappropriate, including creating accounts with sarcastic names and making death threats.
Truth social users
Truth Social has just over 3 million followers, a far cry from the nearly 90 million followers Trump had in his final days on Twitter.
Even with several million people commenting on every "truth" the ex-president writes, his messages appear regularly with only a few thousand "re-truths" and around 10,000 to 20,000 likes.
The new social media platform created by former US President Donald Trump is attracting male millennials with a college education, according to new data from the Statista Global Consumer Survey.
The survey, which was conducted in March 2022, found that while 25% of US social media users were aware of the platform in 2022, only 3% had used the app in the past four weeks, and only 2% said they likely to use it again.
Who are the influencers who joined the platform?
The Truth Social team sent messages to various influencers using the email address associated with the app's parent company, according to Axios.
Among the influencers who received these invitations were Jeremy Jacobowitz, who has 159,700 followers on TikTok, and food and travel writer Jilly Houston, who has 106,000 followers on Instagram.
Proud to be on TRUTH Social!
#TruthSocial pic.twitter.com/NCf2HBXkmf
— Madison Cawthorn (@CawthornforNC) February 20, 2022
Despite their anti-Trump sentiment, Houston told Axios that she would not respond to the request to join.
In contrast, many prominent right-wing figures in the United States are already active on President Donald Trump's new social media platform.
The platform has already featured conservative news personalities such as Shane Hannity and Dan Bongeno, according to Fox Business, as well as Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk.
Right-wing members of Congress such as Rep. Marjorie Taylor Green (R-Ge) and Madison Cawthorne (R-NC) have also successfully registered on the platform, according to screenshots posted to their Twitter accounts.
I'm on Truth Social!
As the only Member of Congress to have my personal @Twitter account banned, I understand what millions of conservatives have gone through having their personal freedom of speech stolen from them by Big Tech for not parroting the approved messaging.
1/3 pic.twitter.com/CcKH3Fnr5a
— Rep.
Marjorie Taylor Greene🇺🇸 (@RepMTG) February 20, 2022