Former US President
Trump announces his own social network “Truth Social”
According to US media reports, ex-US President Donald Trump is said to have been very angry that his own blog flopped. Photo: Patrick Semansky / AP / dpa
© dpa-infocom GmbH
After the storm on the Capitol, Twitter banned Trump – he lost his main mouthpiece. Now the ex-US president wants to open his own network again. It should start in November.
Former US President Donald Trump wants to found an alternative social network. “Truth Social” is the name of the new platform, announced Trump. Truth means truth in German.
The elected president said he had the money to start his own publicly traded media company. With this, Trump is making a fresh attempt to get back into the public online conversation.
The network for invited guests should start in November, and then nationwide in early 2022. The aim is to stand up to the “tyranny” of the big tech companies. “We live in a world in which the Taliban have a huge presence on Twitter, but your dearest American president has been silenced,” said Trump.
Trump recently had 80 million followers on Twitter
Twitter, as well as Facebook and Youtube, blocked Trump’s accounts in January shortly before the end of his term in office. The trigger was the storming of the US Capitol by supporters of Trump – and that he expressed sympathy for the attackers. He also continues to claim, without any evidence, that his presidential election victory in November was stolen by fraud. With that he heated up the mood in the country.
Twitter, where more than 80 million users followed Trump, was until then the most important communication platform for him. The ex-president has been fighting against blocking his account for a long time.
The new media company – Trump Media & Technology Group – was said to have merged with Digital World Acquisition Corp. and wanted to go public, Trump continued. It should be a competitor for the “liberal media consortium” and defend itself against Silicon Valley companies that have used their one-sided power to silence opposition voices in America.
There’s not much to see yet
Trump announced that he would soon publish his first “truth” on Truth Social. Except for the announcement, there is not much to see of the announced network. There is a homepage truthsocial.com with a link to an iPhone app that can be pre-ordered. In the Apple App Store, February 21, 2022 is given as the start date.
After Trump was kicked out of the most important social media, Trump and his supporters made several attempts to build a relevant alternative to Twitter & Co. In May, Trump had a blog set up on his website. There, the former president mainly complained about alleged fraud in the 2020 presidential election.
After a month the blog area was closed again. According to a report in the “Washington Post”, Trump was annoyed that his blog on the Internet had mainly received ridicule. The offer also only attracted a few visitors.
Unconfirmed reports have been circulating in Washington for months that Trump would like to set up his own media company. The rumor that Trump wanted to build an alternative to his former favorite TV station Fox News has also not come true. Even with the establishment of a Twitter alternative, not much has changed. A close Trump advisor, Jason Miller, started a rival social media platform called Gettr. But Trump has not yet joined the platform.