Truth Social Is Here

At first, I was super excited about Trump launching his own social network. Then this news broke:

Trump ‘TRUTH Social’ developing content moderation practices to ensure ‘family-friendly’ community

EXCLUSIVE: When TRUTH Social launches later this quarter, the Trump Media & Technology Group social media platform will already have stringent content moderation practices in place to ensure it is a “family-friendly” online community, company CEO Devin Nunes told Fox Business.

So basically, the aim is to ensure that it’s a family friendly site, and of course, moderated enough to remain on the two big app stores.

I found this deeply disappointing when the news broke, as I really did not want Trump’s official social network to bother censoring its users for the sake of the app stores. I don’t need a Truth Social app. Since Trump is already banned by Facebook, Twitter, etc, I figure the apps are dead on arrival anyway, even though you could pre-order the app on the iOS App Store.

Then some doomers on The Donald were claiming that the social network would use Big Tech infrastructure like AWS or Microsoft Azure but there’s no word or evidence that this is the case. I am sure it probably is, because Trump is an old guy who doesn’t know a whole lot about technology.

In other words, Truth Social will likely make the same mistakes that Parler made, and will make the same compromises that both Parler and Gettr make in order to keep their apps on the app stores.

I still have my Gettr and Parler accounts, and I even have both apps on my phone, but I never use them. I keep wanting to use them, and then I just get disgusted at how, for example, some posts won’t even be seen on the Parler app due to their moderation in order to keep the app in the App Store. Or how you can’t even write the word “groyper” on Gettr as it won’t allow you to post anything with that word in it. Not to mention how they banned Nick Fuentes without ever explaining why.

Then there’s Gab, and the people that are pissed off that Trump isn’t on Gab, including Gab founder Andrew Torba. Let’s face it, there’s three reasons why Trump isn’t on Gab and likely will never be on it:

1. Anti-Semitism. Trump does not hate the Jews. He does not blame everything on the Jews. You people need to get over it. His favorite child, Ivanka, converted to Judaism when she married Jared Kushner. Her kids are being raised as Jewish. I am not saying you have to like it, but he is not going to use this platform because anti-semitism flourishes on it. I don’t think Gab should ban the anti-semitic crap, and if I could, I’d tell Trump to just get over it and use Gab anyway, but I don’t know him, and if I did, he probably wouldn’t listen to me anyway. It is what it is.

1. There’s no app. There used to be a Shortcuts routine for Dissenter in which you could post links to Dissenter, but they clearly gave that up over at Gab, and never bothered to implement one for Gab itself. That would have at least let users share links to Gab using the iOS Shortcuts app. Gab does have a progressive web app but normies and tech-illiterate people don’t know what that is, and probably won’t bother to “install” it which is a shame, because it’s really easy…but then again, I always thought using the search feature of any website was easy, and there’s millions of people in the US alone that literally cannot search for anything on a website that isn’t Google. I am sure Trump himself is probably the same. Sad, but true.

1. He can’t control it. He’s a billionaire businessman. He sees an opportunity – a social network for right-wingers, or people who have been kicked off of Big Tech. But, like most people, he wants to control the site himself. That’s understandable. That’s why my blog isn’t hosted on WordPress.com or Blogger.com. I pay for my hosting, and I host with a site that won’t censor me. Beyond having my own servers, that’s about as much control as I can get. He’s got money – he can build his own social network, and at least pay someone to do it, and he can have full control over it.

I feel really torn about Truth Social. I truly think that the people helping him set it up are setting it up to fail. I don’t think they’re collecting our info for nefarious purposes, like to hand it over to the feds if asked, but I figure that anyone signing up will probably get a bunch of emails or phone calls to donate to his campaign. And yes, it will probably get “hacked” at some point just to scare people away from it, and to give Trump bad press.

By the way, I don’t think any of these “hackings” of right-leaning sites are organic in the least. An insider probably leaks the information to the media, who then breathlessly reports on it while spreading said information all over the Internet so that the people on those site can be harassed for having the nerve to be anything but a card carrying Democrat. More often than not, it’s some douchebag guessing passwords or some dumb script kiddie – that’s NOT real hacking. And, in reality, as I said, if some “insider” who already had access to the database or the servers and accounts for the sites just leaked the info, then that’s definitely not “hacking” or anything of the sort. I just call that deliberate sabotage.

Anyway, as soon as it launched, it was number one in the iOS App Store, and for those that pre-ordered it, you were able to sign up for an account, but then got a ticket number, and of course, there’s been error messages from the site all day, so in my opinion, this is a truly crappy launch. The Android app is forthcoming, and is not available yet. Anything you see on the Google Play Store is likely a scam.

I wish nothing but the best for Truth Social, and while I am sure it will probably get kicked off the App Stores, I hope that Trump sticks with it. I will keep posting on Gab and Brighteon Social in the meantime.