“We live in a world where the Taliban has a huge presence on Twitter, yet your favorite American president has been silenced.”
– Donald Trump
Former US President, Donald Trump, revealed the plans to launch TRUTH Social, a new social media platform, Wednesday.
According to the former US President, the platform will challenge the “tyranny of big tech” companies such as Facebook and Twitter. Trump has often accused various social media platforms of suppressing opposing voices in the country.
According to a press release, TRUTH Social will be born through the merger of two companies, Trump Media & Technology Group (TMTG) and a special acquisition company (SPAC).
“We live in a world where the Taliban has a huge presence on Twitter, yet your favorite American president has been silenced. This is unacceptable,” mentioned Trump in the release.
“I am excited to send out my first TRUTH on TRUTH Social very soon. TMTG was founded with a mission to give a voice to all. I’m excited to soon begin sharing my thoughts on TRUTH Social and fight back against big tech.”
Social media platforms played a crucial role in Trump’s run-up to the 2020 US election and were his preferred mode of communication during his tenure as the president.
Last year, Facebook and Twitter began deleting some of his comments or marking them as “misleading.” Various social media platforms suspended the former US President’s account after the post-election riots at Capitol Hill, which killed at least four people. The violence erupted after Trump made comments such as, “They rigged it like they’ve never rigged an election before,” and “We will not let them silence your voices. We’re not going to let it happen. Not going to let it happen.”
After Facebook and Twitter were prompted to suspend Trump’s account, the former president’s advisers indicated creating a rival social networking platform. The new site, according to the former president’s advisers, will be “a platform for everyone to express their feelings.”
TMTG will receive $293 million, which Digital World Acquisition Corp (DWAC) has in its trust. TMTG’s merger with DWAC, a blank-check company, will allow the company to be listed on NASDAQ.
As per the press release, the Beta version will be available for “invited guests” from November 2021, with a “nationwide rollout expected in the first quarter of 2022.
According to the former president, SOCIAL Truth will be a democratic platform where every user can speak their minds in the form of “Truths.” However, the platform’s terms of service hint that it will moderate the content published by its users. Not only will the platform keep a check on the content, but it also reserves the right to remove users for any reason it deems fit.
According to a Washington Post report, the platform leans towards Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act: something that Trump vehemently opposed during his tenure as the President of the United States. He called it a “very dangerous and unfair” Act, which should be abolished immediately.
The act protects digital platforms from legal action over content posted by users.
“We are not responsible for any Third-Party Websites accessed through the Site or any Third-Party Content posted on, available through, or installed from the Site, including the content, accuracy, offensiveness, opinions [or] reliability,” the term stated.
Several reports also point towards the platform using Mastodon’s codebase. TRUTH Social, as per a report published on Vice, “is seemingly using Mastodon’s codebase without credit.”
“Based on the screenshots I have seen, it absolutely is based on Mastodon,” claimed Eugen Rochko, lead developer and founder of Mastodon.
Mastodon, an open-source software, enables users to create their own social networking sites.
With TRUTH Social, Trump hopes to counter Facebook and Twitter, but questions regarding its longevity are seriously in doubt.
James Clayton, North America technology reporter, writes, “By its very nature the platform is overtly politicized. It is not going to be a talking shop of ideas like Twitter, or a place the whole family is on like Facebook.”
While one may take the credibility of TRUTH Social with a pinch of salt, one thing is certain—Donald Trump will need the help of Big Tech platforms if he hopes to run for the 2024 presidential elections.
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