After multiple postponements, Donald Trump’s social network, called “Truth Social” (which could be translated as “truth network”) began to launch gradually – and with some difficulty – on Monday, February 21. Very strongly inspired by Twitter, the social network uses technology from Mastodon, the free alternative to the American social network. First rolled out on the App Store, the network is meant to be “fully operational” by the end of March, according to Devin Nunes, head of Trump Media & Technology Group (TMTG), the company designing the new network.
The story of Truth Social is above all one of revenge. On January 8, 2021, Donald Trump was banned for life from Twitter for posting several messages encouraging the rioters who stormed the Capitol on January 6. The outgoing president is furious: a compulsive user of Twitter, where he could post messages several dozen times a day during his term, he is now deprived of his favorite social network.
The former American president, who for years has constantly denounced an alleged “censorship” exercised by the major American social networks against his supporters, has repeatedly relied on his banishment from Twitter and Facebook to launch a first “alternative” service. In early May, his team launched From the desk of Donald Trump, a site on which he posted short messages. At the time, the Trump team ensured that it would quickly be possible to register there, to publish messages and comments there… In short, that it would be a real social network. But after barely a month of activity, From the desk of Donald Trump closed with indifference, due to a very low number of visits.
Six months later, in October, Donald Trump announced the upcoming launch of TRUTH Social – by switching platforms, the former president hasn’t lost his taste for words written in all caps. A platform created for “Speak out against the tyranny of Big Tech” and “give everyone a voice”. “Everyone asks me why no one is against Big Tech”he wrote in a press release. “Well, that’s what we’re going to do soon!” » But the project is falling behind schedule: a first launch date, in November, is quickly pushed back to “early 2022”.
Massive funding
If the platform is not yet ready, behind the scenes, Donald Trump and his team are busy signing partnerships. Rumble, the unmoderated video platform that bills itself as an alternative to YouTube, lends its technology for streaming videos on the service. Above all, TMTG has managed to raise significant sums: after a difficult start, the company, together with a special purpose acquisition company (SPAC, empty shell allowing to accelerate an IPO procedure) was able to raise 300 million dollars, including from big names in finance in the United States, including a subsidiary of the investment bank JP Morgan . The merger also saw the alliance raise an additional $1 billion in pledged funding, but those monies will only be paid out if the merger deal, which is under investigation by US regulators , is validated.
These fundraisers give a significant competitive advantage to Truth Social, while “alternative” or “uncensored” social networks, which seek above all to attract the support of the ex-president and far-right activists, have increased over the past three years. Gab, Parler and Gettr are all three seeking to take the contested place of the leading social network of the American right. But while these platforms benefited from an influx of new signups after Donald Trump was banned from Facebook and Twitter, they lack the means of Truth Social or the presence of Donald Trump. All have tried to bring the former president on their network, by reserving a specific account for him and promising him high visibility, even, in the case of Parler, 40% of the shares of the company. The negotiations never came to fruition. The former first lady, Melania Trump, however, opened an account there.
The ultrapoliticized networks are only of relative interest, since they are already preaching to the convinced
In the opinion of almost all experts, political scientists, sociologists or economists, “militant” social networks are structurally doomed, at worst, to failure, at best, to reaching a ceiling fairly quickly. Almost all users prefer to use only one social network and be able to find all of their social circles there. Even from a purely militant point of view, the ultra-politicized networks are of only relative interest, since they are already preaching to the convinced.
All of these competing platforms have also faced very similar challenges over the past three years. The absence or inadequacy of their moderation led certain technical service providers to cut off access to them: Gab thus lost his contract with Microsoft Azure, and Parler was removed from the Apple and Google application stores. All have also experienced their share of technical setbacks and more or less serious hacks; Gettr was overwhelmed with polluting messages, and Gab’s passwords were hacked. The fault, in part, of recruitment difficulties for these sulfur platforms, sometimes accentuated by internal dissension – at the end of December, the entire IT security team of Gettr was laid off, and the reasons of this brutal decision are not very clear.
2024 in sight
The launch of a social network over which he has all the power is also, note American observers, an additional brick in a new campaign for Donald Trump in the presidential election of 2024. Deprived of the networks he had used extensively to make campaign and dictate the media agenda in 2016, the ex-president makes no secret of his intention to run again.
His last public message, published on February 4, took the form of a statement dedicated to the movement of the Canadian “freedom convoy”, which blocked for more than three weeks the center of Canada’s capital, Ottawa. Mr. Trump, who signs the text as CEO of TMTG, unfolds his usual criticisms against the « censure » exercised, according to him, by Facebook and Twitter, and is delighted that the convoy “getting ready to come to Washington to protest the ridiculous rules erected by Biden against the Covid”. Except that no major demonstration linked to this movement took place in the American capital. A probable taste of his future messages stamped “Truth Social”.
