Donald Trump was once one of the opinion leaders on Twitter, regardless of whether you were against or for what he said, until the network suspended his account. So did Facebook, Instagram and YouTube. And now he wants to retake that position with his own network: Truth Social.
This mobile application, which should be fully functional at the end of March, more than a year after the exclusion of the former US president from large digital platforms, was at the head of the most downloaded applications in the Apple online store in the United States on Monday. For now he is only in that country, but he plans to open up to more.
Personalities close to Trump who had access to a test version of the application before its launch were already present on the platform, according to AFP.
This is the case of the Republican legislator Marjorie Taylor Greene, close to conspiracy theories, who published on Sunday screenshots of her first messages on Truth Social, whose appearance resembles that of Twitter.
Truth Social (Social Truth, in Spanish) was presented by Trump as an alternative to Facebook, Twitter and YouTube, from which he has been excluded under the pretext of having incited his supporters to violence before a crowd invaded the Capitol -headquarters of Congress-, on January 6, 2021, when the victory of his Democratic rival Joe Biden in the 2020 elections was to be certified.
For Daniel Ivoskus, political consultant and president of the Political Communication Summit, first of all it is a fact of color that the network has collapsed on its first day due to the number of people who were looking for it.
Ivoskus compares the appearance of Truth Social and its position vis-à-vis other networks such as Twitter and Facebook with what happens with the television media in the United States, where it is known which ideological tendency or which political party it supports. “I wouldn’t talk about a bubble, but rather that they are talking to their own”, he points out.
For him, this corners social networks in two aspects, first, that it cannot be the owners of a network, for example, Twitter, who allow or not certain statements. And rather they should eliminate the trolls, bots, to request certain identification from the people who register, and if a person thinks of saying what he wants instead of censoring him, if he is a person who is proven to physically exist, he can be denounced.
“A public person, such as a president, or anyone can say absolutely what they want… later it will be the justice system who denounces it or whoever feels affected acts. It seems crazy to me that a social network censors certain people… It is giving me the feeling that this division in society, that crack that we saw in our countries could be that it begins to catalog social networks (… .), which are not open or free, but there is a control to censor and also to continue enabling fake news so that dirty campaigns continue running”, comments Ivoskus, who would not be surprised if people from the right and even center-right could even leave Twitter to participate in Truth Social.
Danny Barbery, dean of the Faculty of Communication at UEES, also recalls that in the end, a social network is as free as its owner allows it to be.
Trump and every politician know that communication is power and at the political campaign and propaganda level this has always played a very important role in reaching the masses with the political message.
“What Trump has done is that he not only creates the channel to carry political discourse, but also to understand the exchange of opinions and ‘truth’ on issues in general, especially politics, which is what he has handled in recent years. … I think it’s going to be, to a certain extent, a hard blow for Twitter, which is a network more focused on generating opinion and about this the controversy, “says Barbery.
The professor also points out that with so much information, with big data that is generated through social networks, filters can be made and different results can be managed to obtain millions of profiles in terms of trends, preferences, interests, public opinions at the political level. Also remember that you have to wait a while, usually years, to find out how the issue of subscription is being handled to generate money, mainly with advertising.
Meanwhile, María Fernanda Paredes, professor of Digital Strategies at the Universidad San Francisco de Quito, comments that although freedom of expression is very important, human beings need certain limits so that they can live together in the best way. In that respect, Thruth Social can be a space for free expression like any other, however, it could also be a space that promotes heated discussions that lead to inappropriate behavior. But we will have to wait to see how it develops and what space it will occupy among the other social networks.
“As for displacing other social networks in the treatment of political issues, in my opinion, it is something that will not necessarily happen. Each social network is established by its users and their communities. Thruth could become a network for political issues, taking the conversation a bit further into that realm; however, it would never be pigeonholed as an exclusive social network for it. The other social networks would also have a space”, says Paredes.
politician on standby
At 75 years old, Trump leaves doubts about his intention to compete again for the Republican investiture in the race for the White House.
The former president (2017-2021) faces several investigations for his tax returns and for the way in which he would have tried to stay in power after the defeat in the November 2020 elections. Likewise, his management of official documents, which should have been transmitted to the national archives, is under scrutiny.
Before the deletion of his Twitter account, that social network was Trump’s favorite, which he used every day to make presidential announcements and to launch attacks against his political enemies. He had about 89 million followers whom he addressed daily.
According to several statements, Trump Media & Technology Group has about 1,250 million dollars to face its competitors in the market, already dominated by ultra-conservative social networks such as Gettr, launched in early July by former Trump adviser Jason Miller, and also the Parler and Gab networks.
In December, TMTG announced a partnership with Canadian video distribution platform Rumble, stating that a beta version had been released using its (remote) cloud computing service. (I)
Source: Eluniverso
Paul is a talented author and journalist with a passion for entertainment and general news. He currently works as a writer at the 247 News Agency, where he has established herself as a respected voice in the industry.
