Trump’s New Social Media Platform
On January 8, 2021, former US President Donald Trump was effectively banished and separated from his tens of millions of followers on his social network of choice: Twitter. Emboldened by this action, the leftist social media followed suit and within 10 days, Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat and several of the more popular networks permanently banned or suspended the former president.
De-platforming Trump left him with few options to communicate with loyal followers. This is unprecedented in the United States, a country founded upon free speech. History has shown that those governments that have chosen to silence the voices of the people were tyrannical oligarchies, dictatorships, authoritarian or religious zealots. History has not looked kindly on those leaders. Yet, here we are in the last true bastion of freedom in the world, where the Democrats, a party that espouses the importance of giving marginalized persons a voice, have done exactly the opposite.
Never in the history of the United States has one political party tried so hard to silence a politician. Of course, the great irony is that when Trump was a Democrat, he was happily embraced by the leftist establishment. Oprah Winfrey, the Clintons, Barbara Walters, even Alec Baldwin were all too eager to take photos with Trump – until he took on the career-politician establishment. The left erupted with accusation after accusation including the Russian probe which, in last part of 2021 was proven to have been entirely a fraud.
The guns-blazing approach exhibited by the left has given even very moderate Republicans cause for concern. Why does the left not want him excluded? Reasonable people can surmise that his actions or inactions tied to the January 6th ruckus, but the left has been persecuting him with great vigor from the day he announced his candidacy.
By the numbers, his Presidency had some decent success: low inflation, gas prices were much lower, lowest real unemployment in five decades, 7 million more jobs created among other things.
Still, the left was hellbent on flinging accusations. The Stormy Daniels affair was the ultimate irony, given Bill Clinton’s affair and misdeeds literally inside the Oval Office. The left’s prodigal sons and daughters are above reproach while all outsiders must be eliminated?
This is not the America most reasonable people recognize – it has taken a dark turn.
Trump would not be silenced, so he started his own social media platform called “Truth Social.” As of January 2022, the app is not yet available, and so inquiries directed at the app’s website are prompted to join a waiting list.
What Do We Know About Trump’s New Social Media Platform?
On October 20, 2021, Trump Media & Technology Group issued a press release that announced the platform would have its public launch in “the first quarter of 2022.” It was slated to enter limited beta for iOS in Apple’s App Store in November 2021, and though it did not meet this schedule for its beta testing, Trump claimed in December 2021 that “invited guests” were already using the beta site.
Hours after the press release, a person identifying themselves as a part of the hacker collective Anonymous used Shodan to discover domains related to the company, eventually locating what appeared to be a publicly-accessible mobile beta of the website. The URL, which permitted users to sign up and use the platform, was leaked across social media. Users began trolling on the site, creating parody accounts, and posting humorous and comedic content. Users were able to sign up with usernames of high-profile individuals including Trump, Mike Pence, and Jack Dorsey. The link was later taken offline.
Truth Social is based on Mastodon, free and open-source software that is released under the AGPLv3 license. AGPLv3 requires any derivative source code to be publicly available. On October 21, 2021, the Software Freedom Conservancy group stated that they suspected Truth Social had violated Mastodon’s license by not offering its source code to all users. The Mastodon developers then formally requested that Truth Social comply with the terms of the software license. On November 12, 2021, Truth Social published its source code as a ZIP file on its website.
When the company was first announced in October 2021, its terms of service said the company would not be legally responsible for “the content, accuracy, offensiveness, opinions [or] reliability” of anything users might post to the site. Some commentators noted that this self-declared immunity appeared to rely on Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, a law that Trump firmly opposed during his presidency.
The terms of service further added that users would be forbidden to “disparage, tarnish, or otherwise harm, in our opinion, us and/or the Site”. Truth Social said it has the right to “suspend or terminate your account” and also “take appropriate legal action”. This seems to be a tactic taken straight from the leftist social media platforms. What’s good for the goose, as they say.
Technology
Truth Social is modeled heavily after Twitter. Reportedly, users will be able to make posts (“truths”) and share other users’ posts (“retruths”). The platform will also feature a newsfeed, called a “truth feed”, as well as a notification system.
As of October 2021, while the Truth Social platform was still in development, it used a custom version of the free and open-source social network hosting software Mastodon, which is typically used to connect to a broader collection of social networking websites known as the Fediverse. Truth Social’s version of Mastodon had removed several features, including polls and post visibility options.
On December 14, 2021, TMTG said it had partnered with Rumble and that Rumble was already providing cloud services to the Truth Social beta website.
Reception
BBC journalist James Clayton stated that the platform could be a more successful version of other alt-tech social media platforms like Parler and Gab, and is an attempt by Trump to gain his “megaphone” back. Gettr CEO Jason Miller, a former advisor of Trump, praised Truth Social, said that the platform will cause Facebook and Twitter to “lose even more market share”. Gab said in a statement that it supports Truth Social and that users of Gab can follow Trump on his reserved Gab account.
Among critical reactions, Chris Cillizza of CNN wrote that the platform was doomed to fail. Objectively, many new social media apps have fallen and there’s always uncertainty in the first year or two. Noah Berlatsky, writing in The Independent, described it as a potential threat to democracy. The Forward raised concerns of antisemitism becoming prominent on the platform, noting similar platforms that have become known for hosting antisemitic content, such as Parler, Gab and Telegram. This is a common problem among social media platforms that claim censorship will be eliminated: it sometimes encourages radicals and hate groups to be early adopters of the platform and things get out of hand quickly. Often forcing the platforms to slowly clamp down on the definition of “free speech.”
Rolling Stone observed that while Truth Social promises to be an open and free platform, Truth Social’s terms of service include a clause stating that users cannot disparage the site.
