Donald Trump has launched his new social media app, Truth Social, luring users with the promises of a platform free from “discrimination against political ideology.” Truth Social, a social media network developed by former president Donald Trump’s new media company, is up on the iOS App Store. The service is modeled after Twitter, which was previously Trump’s preferred social media platform before being banned in 2021. Conservatives have repeatedly criticized Twitter and other big tech companies for what they see as overly harsh moderation of right-wing views. In response, a wave of right-wing platforms have grown in popularity, including Parler, Gettr and now Truth Social seems to have gained significant interest. Will Trump’s new app be able to compete with the others?
What Features are on Trump’s New Social Media?
Truth Social is being developed by Trump Media and Technology Group. Similar to tweets, Trump’s new social media refers to individual posts as “Truths.” You can see other people’s truths on your “Truth Feed.” If you see a “Truth” that you want to share with your followers, you can apparently “ReTruth” it. Other features under development are support for direct messaging, as well as user verification, according to the platform’s chief product officer.
“Our main goal here is to give people their voice back,” said former Republican US congressman Devin Nunes, who became Trump Media and Technology Group’s president earlier this year, adding that the app offers “the opposite of some Silicon Valley tech oligarch freak telling people what they want to think and deciding who can or cannot be on the platform.” he also said he hopes the social media platform would be “fully operational” by the end of March.
Can Trump’s New Social Media Compete with Others?
As of Wednesday morning, Trump’s account on Truth Social had just under 50,000 followers, according to the New York Times. The former president formerly had over 88 million followers on Twitter. Trump’s “first post” on Truth Social said “Get Ready! Your favorite President will see you soon!” Whether his new platform will truly take off remains to be seen. Other “free speech” startups like Parler, MeWe, Gettr, and Rumble compete for a similar pool of social media users.
An exact launch date for the service’s Android app is yet to be announced, but Truth Social’s website says it’s coming to the Google Play Store “soon.” Hopefully developers will fix the glitches the app currently has before that expansion happens. Some users report vague error messages when attempting to open the app after signing up. Other users say they were put on waiting lists of hundreds of thousands of people to register, or their verification emails never came. With any new app launching, bugs are to be expected but developers need to fix these issues sooner rather than later if Truth Social is expected to succeed as a social media platform.
If developers are able to put the pieces together and smooth out the bugs, do you think Truth Social will be the next big conservative social media platform? Should Twitter be angry over the similarity of the two social media platforms? As of this article, Twitter has given no comment as to whether they will take action against Truth Social in any way. Could reopening this direct line to his followers, and the post he posted, be Trump’s way of signaling he will be running for president again?
Written by: Erinn Malloy
