“Hillary Clinton should be arrested.” “The vote in Pennsylvania was stolen.” “Can Johnny Depp and Amber Heard make up and get back together?” Posts like this are frequent on former President Donald Trump’s page on the Truth Social platform, which he is one of the owners.
The new platform was launched in February, but only as an iPhone app — and with a waiting list. The version accessible in any browser was only made available last Wednesday (18), two months after the initial forecast. There is still no app for Android phones.
Trump invested in a platform of his own after being banned from major social networks such as Twitter and Facebook for posting lies and inciting violence in the wake of the Capitol Hill invasion in January 2021, when Republican supporters tried to forcibly reverse his defeat.
On Truth Social, Trump has 3 million followers, far less than the 88 million he had on Twitter when he was banned.
After downloading the application, the user starts to receive alerts about the former president’s comments, even if he did not ask for it. Notifications arrive like “BREAKING: Trump responds to news
of what [Elon] Musk may back off from Twitter purchase.”
The network’s appearance, by the way, resembles that of the platform that the richest man in the world says he wants to buy, with short posts, limited to 500 characters, and photos. There is no list of hot topics and no option to send private messages. What is published is only visible to registered users.
Registration is quick: just enter phone and email, confirm that they are valid, and then choose a username. Then there are suggestions for profiles to follow, the first on the list, surprise!, is Trump. Upon accepting all the nominations, a feed appears full of supporters of the former president, conspiracy theories and political jokes.
On Friday (20), for example, there were highlights for posts about “2,000 Mules”, a documentary that claims to have evidence about fraud in the 2020 presidential election, in which Trump was defeated. Checks by news outlets such as the Associated Press and newspapers such as The Washington Post say that the film’s allegations are unsubstantiated.
“Anyone who sees the great new documentary ‘2000 Mules’ and doesn’t believe the 2020 presidential election was rigged and stolen is either an idiot, very corrupt or stupid,” Trump tweeted.
The former president maintains the style he paraded on Twitter. In addition to questioning the fairness and results of the elections, he makes acid comments on the topics of the day, attacks opponents and republishes news and memes — MANY TIMES IN ALL CAPS, as in the past.
Trump has reposted materials that refer to him as “the great MAGA King”, reference to “Make America Great Again”, the slogan of his campaigns. President Joe Biden called him that in a recent speech to mock him, but his rival seems to have liked the nickname.
In one of the montages, the republican appears as Conan, hero of the comics and a movie from the 1980s, with sword in hand, muscular chest on display and the title “the great king MAGA”. In another publication, he praises the children’s book “The Plot Against the King”, a fairy tale in which the character Hillary Queenton, that is, Hillary Clinton, tries to destroy democracy, to be saved by the MAGA king. .
Memes with Trump are common on many profiles. One of the pages suggested in the registry, “The Babylon Bee”, parodies the news. There are quotes like “Elon Musk swaps all Tesla car horns for ‘Let’s Go Brandon'”. The phrase became a way of saying “screw Biden” after a TV reporter mistook a swearing at the Democrat for cheering a racing driver.
The former president also uses the account to support local candidates in midterms, elections that will renew Congress and 36 state governments in November. There are posts like “Dr. Oz will be a great senator for the people of Pennsylvania. He will win the election against the Radical Lunatic Left.”
Trump may run in the 2024 election and is looking for ways to maintain his power over the Republican Party and contact with voters. Another widely used platform is Telegram, in which a channel dedicated to the former president, without a verification seal, has 965,000 followers.
While Truth bills itself as a network that encourages “a global, honest, open and free conversation, without discrimination for political ideology,” the report found no accounts that represent views from outside the right, such as Democratic politicians — not out of censorship, but perhaps for lack of interest.
Media outlets like The New York Times and CNN, Trump’s regular targets, aren’t there either. Media linked to the right, such as OAN and The Epoch Times, have created accounts, as has Fox News presenter Sean Hannity, who has 1 million followers.
But other leading figures on the American right, such as presenter Tucker Carlson and Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, do not have official Truth accounts. Trump’s deputy, Mike Pence, also did not join.
TMTG, which owns the platform, was created by the former president in partnership with DWAC (Digital World Acquisition Corp), founded in Miami at the end of 2020. The two merged and, in December, announced an agreement to receive more than US $1 billion in investments, which would join the roughly $300 million raised by Digital World over the course of 2021 from the stock sale.
TMTG has ambitious plans. In addition to Truth, it wants to create a streaming service to compete with Netflix and Disney+ and a news channel. In the long term, it also wants to enter the cloud server market, to compete with Amazon and Google.
The failures in the launch of the social network, however, cast doubts on the ability to carry out these plans. Two company executives left their positions in April due to internal errors. And, according to Rolling Stone magazine, Trump reportedly complained that Google was making it difficult to launch Truth’s Android app, which has about 40% of the US smartphone market.
