After Donald Trump’s decision to ban him permanently on Twitter in 2021, In 2021, the former US president decided to launch his own social media network named Truth Social, which he promises to “stand up to the tyranny of Big Tech.” Today is Presidents Day in the United States. Here’s what it means. Have a look at amazing facts about Truth Social!
Why Did Trump Start a Social Network?
Why should Trump have social media? Please take a look at his (former) followers’ counts. Before the account was shut off the market, Trump had nearly 90 million followers. He has 34 million on Facebook who also banned Trump until January 2023.
If there was one thing Trump was a fan of in the past and throughout his time in office, it’s tweeting online. Based on an analysis of previous Tweets, Trump was tweeting more than thirty times per day towards the end of his term as president. After being banned, he returned to the web with a temporary blog, which posted updates that resembled Twitter.
Instead of turning back from the millions who are glued to Trump’s every move, Trump believes he can influence the conversation and shift the people who follow him towards Truth Social. If he can convince even just a tiny percentage of followers to join him, this endeavor will be a big success for Trump.
Naturally, the concept of money can also be an important factor in motivation regardless of whether it’s a large investment in the business or another means to get small-dollar contributions from your supporters.
Who Runs Truth Social?
There are two companies that are behind Truth Social. The first one is Trump Media & Technology Group (TMTG), founded in 2021 and founded in February 2021 by Donald Trump. The company is also known under its name T Media Tech LLC, in certain places. Since January 20, 2022, the former US Rep. Devin Nunes has been the company’s CEO.
The other company in the mix has been Digital World Acquisition Corp. (DWAC) which is a publicly-traded SPAC established with the help of Miami banking entrepreneur Patrick Orlando. Both entities have signed an agreement to merge in order to create TMTG, the first publicly-traded company. The company that was merged is subject to an SEC investigation over possible violations of securities laws.
The goal of TMTG being a public corporation is to provide alternatives to the mainstream media and social networks. Apart from Truth Social, the company is also working on launching the news-focused network TMTG News and a video-streaming service dubbed TMTG+. All three of these services are based on conservative viewing.
Who Is Truth Social For?
Are you on Truth Social? If you’re looking to find out whether you belong, the answer is likely not. This platform wasn’t designed to replace mainstream services such as Twitter and Facebook. It’s a different social media platform that was designed to combat a perceived “woke culture” and less about accessibility or content moderation.
Similar platforms have been popping up overtime to catch the interest of far-right, alt-right, and extremist and fringe groups. They include Gab, Parler, and Telegram, who have all been courted by the right with different degrees of success and also a failure in the face of hate speech that has exploded. Trump’s former advisor to the political party, Jason Miller, created his own social platform for right-wingers known as Gettr in the days when Truth Social was just a speculation, but it’s got its own issues. Truth Social has formally partnered with Rumble, which is a platform for a video that is popular among the extreme right.
In a first statement on the platform, Trump stated that Truth Social will not have “shadow-banning, throttling, demonetizing, or messing with algorithms for political manipulation,” that could be taken as an allusion to the de-platforming which has occurred to several alt-right personalities on the mainstream social media platforms throughout the years.
“We will not silence our fellow citizens simply because they might be wrong–or worse, because we think that Americans ‘can’t handle the truth,'” Trump declared. However, the conditions of service state that your account may be suspended when you mock the site.
Truth Social will undoubtedly be appealing to those who use these other platforms and those who previously followed Trump via Twitter or Facebook.
Why Does Truth Social Look Like Twitter?
Truth Social bears more than an eminent resemblance to Twitter; however, it’s not because Twitter was Trump’s preferred platform of choice. Truth Social was created using an open-source license by Mastodon, which was originally designed as an alternative for Twitter.
When a test version called Truth Social was released in October 2021, it was discovered the Truth Social used a colored variant of Mastodon’s 3.0 theme. The majority of the functionality is the same as Twitter. Instead of likes, they are referred to as Truths. Instead of retweets, they’re Re-Truths. The news feed is referred to as the Truth feed and so on.
What Is Mastodon?
Mastodon is an open-source, decentralized microblogging platform for social media. It’s built upon the ActivityPub protocol, allowing several servers to run independently to connect with other ActivityPub services. This interconnected network of systems and servers is referred to in the sense of Fediverse, in which Mastodon is only one component.
In simple terms, it means that anyone is using Mastodon. Social, the “official” and largest Mastodon server, Mastodon. Social, can see posts and interact with other users on the infosec—exchange server, as well as other servers. You can also follow the posts of Pixelfed users. Social photo-sharing platform.
Integration with Mastodon has an advertising-free philosophy that was recently integrated as a non-profit organization, and its servers operate by the administrators. This means that it is not equipped with several of the tools to compromise privacy used in other platforms for social networking, like algorithmic feeds and tracking of users.
Mastodon puts a lot of emphasis on accessibility and content moderation. Servers and individuals can restrict users as well as entire domains, and the content of the posts is often not searchable. Descriptions of content and images that are suitable for screen readers have been integrated into the platform, and the community is supportive of the use of screen readers.
It has 4.4 million active users. Mastodon has a small user base compared with centralized, ad-driven platforms like Facebook and Twitter. However, it has performed surprisingly well in its open-source role as an unpopular. In 2021, the company launched the first officially-licensed iOS app, and plans are being made to launch an Android application. Due to the media coverage created through Truth Social, more attention is likely to be paid to the open-source social platform, whether for good or bad.
Why Did Mastodon Threaten to Sue Truth Social?
Truth Social is based on Mastodon, which is perfectly acceptable. Mastodon’s open source license allows developers to modify, utilize and release their applications in the way they choose. However, anyone who uses the license – GNU Affero General Public License v3.0 (AGPL-3.0)–must be able to disclose the fact that their software is based on Mastodon. They should also provide the source code, as well as any modifications available to anybody to download.
The original Truth Social website did not declare its connection to Mastodon or make the source code accessible. The platform claimed the source code it used was exclusive and is owned by Mastodon. In the event of a copyright violation, Mastodon threatened to sue in the event that Trump didn’t comply within 30 days.
To avoid legal action, Truth Social acknowledged it was an offshoot of Mastodon. When you go on to Truth Social’s Truth Social website, you are able to go to Legal Docs at the bottom of the page. Select Open Source to download a Zip file that includes the Mastodon source code.
How Do I Sign Up for Truth Social?
The beta test of the iOS app was scheduled to begin in the month of November 2021. However, invites were only sent out in February to around 500 individuals, Reuters reports. On February. 21, you can download the iOS application via the App Store. The app for Android app has been announced as “coming soon,” according to the Truth Social website. After signing for the service, you’ll be asked to enter an email address and a phone number.
Will Truth Social Be Safe to Join?
Though it’s built upon Mastodon’s software, Truth Social may be set to not communicate with other services on the Fediverse, which effectively makes it an isolated entity. Mastodon also comes with impressive filtering, moderation, and blocking tools that are built-in and available to admins as well as users. They might not be available on Truth Social.
Other indicators of the security of Truth Social are found in the documentation of the company. Its Privacy Policy, for example, frequently refers to the role of ads and third-party advertisements. Although it’s unclear what impact it has regarding privacy issues, the monetization aspect is definitely an important consideration. The Truth Social’s Terms of Service forbid anything that could “disparage, tarnish, or otherwise harm, in our opinion, us and the Site.”
On the Truth Social iPhone app page, The bulk of the description is dedicated to Truth Social’s ambitions to become a “big tent” social media platform. It is a metaphor for a wedding that has guests who are liberal or conservative, and perhaps, liberal, yet everyone had a great time inside the large tent. But a nonchalant policy on content moderation and a well-established connection with the far-right is a reason to doubt the Truth Social is destined to be a pillar of high-minded discussion.
It might be useful to study other similarly situated far-right websites on social media. Gab Southern Poverty Law Center says that Gab is “known for hosting white supremacist content.” The BBC stated of Parler: “It is the home of many posts that would either be flagged as misleading or removed by major platforms–on topics like the election, COVID-19, child trafficking, and vaccines.” If that sounds secure to you, then you’ll definitely fit into it.
In the same way, sites that are dominated by far-right views have faced security issues. Gab was compromised, and an attacker exposed 70GB of data of users. Parler had a significant security hole that enabled hackers to access and download almost all of its public content. A hacker had previously obtained access to the Truth Social website, causing others to join the site in a hurry and cause all kinds of destruction.
