Trump launches social network with more than 110,000 people on the waiting list

The Truth Social app, a social network created by former President Donald Trump, arrived on the US App Store this Monday (21). The use of the app, however, is still restricted.

For now, the program opens the option to register, with email and username. After confirming the validity of the email, however, the interested party receives a notice that they will have to wait. When registering, for example, the report was informed that it was in position 18,792.

Hours later, the number of interested parties awaiting release had skyrocketed. “Your account has been successfully created. Thank you for joining. Due to very high demand, we have placed you on a waitlist. We love you, and you are not just another number for us. But your waitlist number is below. “, reads the message in the app, which displayed the number 110,134.

For now, Truth Social has only one iOS app, which includes iPhones. The Android version has not yet been released, nor the web version. The tool’s website only has the option to leave a name and email for the waiting list. The feature, however, appears to be unavailable and displays an error message after filling out the form.

Screenshots of the new social network show a look very similar to that of Twitter. Donald Trump Jr., the former president’s son, released an image of what would be his father’s first publication on the new network. “Be ready! Your favorite president will see you soon!

Devin Nunes, CEO of TMTG (Trump Media & Technology Group), the company that owns Truth Social, told Fox News that the app, despite being launched on Monday (21), should go into full operation only at the end of March.

As a candidate and president, Trump used his Twitter account often heatedly. He once had 88.7 million followers, but his account was banned in January 2021 for inciting violence after his supporters stormed the Capitol. The president was also suspended from Facebook and YouTube.

As the big platforms adopted rules to curb hate speech and lies and started to suspend profiles, many right-wing activists began to migrate to smaller social networks, or to create platforms of their own, such as Parler, Gettr and Rumble.

Another tool used as an alternative is Telegram. The app allows you to create message distribution lists for huge groups. One channel, named Donald J. Trump but without the verification seal, has 1.022 million followers. Donald Trump Jr.’s channel, verified by the platform, has 851 thousand participants.

In 2021, Trump and some partners announced the creation of their own social network, as part of a new company, TMTG. At the time, they said the venture was intended to “rival the liberal media consortium and combat so-called ‘big tech’ Silicon Valley companies,” in a statement.

The company that owns Truth Social was created by Trump in partnership with DWAC (Digital World Acquisition Corp), founded, in turn, in Miami at the end of 2020. Last year, DWAC had as its financial director the Brazilian federal deputy Luiz Philippe de Orleans and Bragança (PSL-SP). According to financial records cited by the New York Times, Bragança had a tiny share in the distribution of shares — around 0.11%, in October 2021.

In December, there was a merger between DWAC and TMTG. That same month, the company announced an agreement to receive an additional $1 billion in investment, which would join the roughly $300 million raised by Digital World throughout 2021 through the stock sale.

TMTG has ambitious plans. In addition to Truth Social, it wants to create a streaming service to compete with Netflix and Disney+, and a news channel to compete with CNN. In the long term, it also wants to enter the cloud server market, to compete with Amazon and Google.

In a presentation to investors, the company highlights that Donald Trump had 146 million followers, adding up his profiles on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram, a number close to the number of Netflix subscribers in 2021 (209 million). Thus, he argues that there is a great investment opportunity when creating content channels for the audience that followed the former president.