TRUTH Social, or how Trump is compensating for his social media ban

Donald Trump is a politician who inspires undue admiration in some and deep hatred in others. It’s impossible to walk away from it, even for investors who invested heavily in TRUTH, the new social media app from Trump’s media group.

The beginning of the embarrassment around Trump’s social media began in 2021, the moment when BigTech, represented in this case, by Twitter, Facebook, Snapchat, Twitch or YouTube, decided to remove a politician from the media space.

To the undoubted delight of a hostile media, the subject of the ability of corporations to steer social discourse and limit free speech was revealed to the public. It was also the moment of impeachment being directed against Trump, with conspiracy theories spreading online about a mysterious Q who reported on a Deep State conspiracy against the now former U.S. president, who was forced to pursue political goals in seclusion, before the eyes of the public.

It was also the moment when Donald Trump realized that he could not afford such treatment, and so he imminently announced work on his own project.

Convincing Trump?

As we read in the Rzeczpospolita article (from last December) Digital World Acquisition Corp, responsible for the listing of Trump Media & Technology Group Corp., gave notice that she would be trading at nearly $300 million, which meant raising the capital of Trump’s new company to $1.25 billion. The companies went through a merger, and in a statement from Trump Media and Digital World, we could see that the money came from “a diverse group of institutional investors”.

Major investors were Trump supporters and day traders who were eager to buy the company’s stock during its debut. While noting that many of the wolves of Wall Street were not interested in investing. Not everyone wants their company’s name associated with the ex-president’s name, especially after his supporters’ attack on Capitol Hill or his political leanings. What’s more, Senator Warren has asked for an audit of the merger and its propriety for potential violations of securities and disclosure laws.

Problems..

As you can see, problems with the application start even before it is created. The same was true of its implementation itself. The media announced its launch several times, which Trump Media eventually & Technology Group (TMTG) announced for the first three months of 2022.

It is officially known that the application will not be available in the Android OS store. Trump is not fond of the platform because it removed his app earlier Official Trump 2020 App. According to the service, it did not meet the standards and guidelines of Google Play. Android Police claims the software continually crashed, failed to load content and disconnected from the network. Moreover, the developers were contacted about fixing the irregularities, which did not meet with a response.

Truth Social

Truth Social opened on Feb. 21, which is during the U.S. President’s Day Celebration. iPhone owners are ultimately supposed to be able to express themselves without any restrictions or censorship, though even there are media outlets calling the app a propaganda tube.

Posts are called truths, and their shared versions are called –re-truths. Heartwarming, observing, commenting or private messaging. Observers here see a similarity between the app and Trump’s beloved Twitter, which incidentally was the first to first temporarily and then permanently block Trump from the service, which the rest of the media followed. The hype surrounding this scandal has also caused other right-wing services like Gettr, MeWe and Parler to rise in popularity.

Even more problems ..

As Techcrunch reported, most users could not even register for the app. Verification of age of majority was also problematic. – After receiving a verification email, the link displayed more error messages, making it impossible to create an account. – reads the article. Users have reported being put on waiting lists, and some have not received any feedback at all. Many have not been able to complete the vetting process.

Developers also noted that TRUTH Social used open source code from Mastodon, whose use requires references to the source code and sharing of information about its purpose. The site claimed authorship until Mastodon’s statement appeared, which read: – The terms of service included a disturbing section claiming that the site is proprietary and all source code and software is owned, controlled or licensed by them. Notably, neither the terms and conditions nor any other part of the site contained any reference to Mastodon, nor any links to the source code, which are present by default in the Mastodon user interface. Mastodon is free software published under the AGPLv3 license, which requires any service above the network to use it in order to make its source code and any modifications publicly available – writes Mastodon.

It is speculated that the service’s infamous start is related to insufficient capacity in the IT systems responsible for administering the network. Unfortunately or unfortunately, we can’t use this service in Poland, unless our VPN allows us to.

As we can see, Trump’s character is full of scrapes and ambiguities. For some a display of rebellion and morality, for others a rotten wallet-driven creature. The argument depends on political agitation. On the one hand, taking this figure apart, some may see a screamer with a pro-Putin message who limits the availability of his app to where it can benefit him politically. It also “steals” the source code from a third party and fails to invest in a proper architecture capable of supporting the application’s traffic.

On the other hand, mitigating this negative view, Mr. Donald does not have an easy task on the market. This is not easy in a situation where Amazon, Alphabet or Microsoft would not agree to host the service, if only for image reasons, and more broadly for their own benefit.

And here you see the second part of the puzzle. A man who is disagreed with by corporations can be removed from the Internet and influence political, business and social decisions.

The rise of “Truth” is not a surprise given the ex-president’s persona, but neither is its false start surprising in the face of the adversaries it has in its path. One thing is for sure, the figure of the former U.S. president raises a lot of emotions, and according to the editors, maybe even too much. It is worth considering why we give attention, because the evaluation will depend on the context, which can be freely manipulated. The only certainty is the fact that Trump’s new app is the so-called. failure, and even as it rises from its knees, it may not do too well in the market without the right campaign.