First Users Hit Trump's Truth Social for Beta Testing: 'Y'all Are Going to Love It'
Former President Donald Trump has worked on a nonpartisan social media platform intended to facilitate free speech unburdened by moderator discrimination founded on political biases.
The application’s website presently shows only a waiting list for the platform. It also displays the application’s mission statement, which is to be “America’s ‘Big Tent’ social media platform that encourages an open, free, and honest global conversation without discriminating against political ideology.”
The website additionally shows a button to pre-order the application on the Apple App Store for users accessing it on their cell phones. According to screen shots in the applications’ Apple App Store listing, Truth Social’s user interface on iPhones is remarkably similar to that of Twitter.
One can chat, share and write posts in the application, just like they can on Twitter. However, a significant difference between Twitter and Truth Social is that the entire premise of the latter is to be a platform facilitating free speech and discourse.
While the application is only available for pre-order for most people, a fortunate few have gained beta access to it ahead of its upcoming launch.
Right Side Broadcasting Network correspondent and vice president operations Liz Willis told Reuters and confirmed on her Twitter handle that she received pre-release access to the upcoming platform. “Y’all are going to LOVE it!” the conservative journalist wrote.
Beta testing the new ‘Truth Social’ app and all I can say is, y’all are going to LOVE it! ?
I can’t wait for everyone to join me!
Thank you, President Trump.
??
— Liz Willis (@LizWillis_) February 15, 2022
TRUTH Social (beta) has dropped and President Trump is active on his own account!
The world is healing. ?? pic.twitter.com/58klKutxay
— Liz Willis (@LizWillis_) February 15, 2022
According to the news service, Willis got access to the platform’s iPhone application through Apple’s TestFlight. This service permits developers registered with the iOS Developer Program to share beta versions with prospective users.
Conservative commentator and WayneDupree.com founder Wayne Dupree also confirmed Thursday via Twitter that he has received access to the platform and has been using it for the past few days.
“Many liberal outlets claim it looks like Twitter,” Dupree wrote in the Twitter post announcing his use of the application’s beta version. “It compares yes but it’s not Twitter or any other platform. It’s #TruthSocial.”
“One unique feature is news aggregators that post stories have a BOT label,” Dupree added.
President Trump has a profile on the app, which will allow him to communicate with his followers like he used to before Twitter banned him following the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol incursion, prompting concerns of growing big-tech overreach.
“A couple of things could happen [with the TRUTH Social launch],” New York University Center for Social Media and Politics co-director Joshua Tucker told TIME magazine.
“By his sheer force of personality, Trump could suck the air out of Parler, Gab, GETTR, all these sites and pull everybody over. And [that would mean the site] could break through the critical threshold and actually get big enough to support real ad revenue…If Trump’s able to do that, it probably means the rest of those platforms fade away and we’re in a new world where we have the mainstream platforms and one really big right-wing platform,” Tucker said.
But, if Trump fails to do so, “then this conversation about whether someone can establish a big right-wing platform likely goes away,” Tucker told the magazine.
Tucker explained that the utility of a social media platform is directly proportional to the number of individuals using it.
“The more people who join, the more value [these sites] provide. That’s a fundamental premise of social media,” he said, according to the magazine. “So when you start out by lopping off [a large percentage] of the population, that gets more challenging because it’s harder to scale. And that’s especially the case when there are alternatives out there that don’t have the same limitations as you.”
Former Republican congressman and TMTG Chief Executive Officer Devin Nunes told Reuters that the developers are working on launching the app in March.
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