After a year since social media platform Twitter (NYSE: TWTR) suspended his account permanently, former US President Donald Trump is set to launch his own social media platform today, coinciding with the country’s Presidents’ Day. The platform, called Truth Social, hit the App Store shelf over the weekend in time for the public launch.
However, the Trump-backed app bears a striking resemblance to the platform that suspended him over a year ago.
Like Twitter, Truth Social seems to employ the “follow” function in engaging with other users. Options for each post also include similar functions to “comment”, “retweet”, and “favorite”. A user even gets a name “handle” that starts with “@”, which was pioneered by Twitter and Instagram.
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The businessman-turned-politician has constantly been criticized for his incessant use of Twitter while he was serving as US president. Due to his tweets that perpetuated perceived false information about election fraud during the 2020 presidential elections and its supposed connection to the January 6th Capitol Hill attack, Trump was permanently suspended by the platform. Facebook and Instagram also banned the former president on their respective platforms until 2023 while Youtube suspended his account indefinitely.
Now, he’s been inching his way back to some form of social media–and finally, through creating his own: Truth Social. The app aims to be a social media platform that “encourages an open, free, and honest global conversation without discriminating against political ideology.”
The app has apparently been beta testing to a number of users before it finally went live on the App Store on Sunday night.
Many of the US Republicans have already created their Truth Social accounts, as they have announced on Twitter. These include North Carolina Rep. Madison Cawthorn, Arizon State Sen. Wendy Rogers, and Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene.
However, due to the high volume of user registration when the app became available for download on App Store, the users are being put on a waitlist.
Some users reported encountering technical errors after trying to create a new account.
Truth Social’s website is also showing an error as of this writing.
Truth Social is developed by Trump’s Trump Media & Technology Group. The firm announced the planned US$875 million merger deal with SPAC Digital World Acquisition Corp (Nasdaq: DWAC).
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