It was launched about a month ago amid great fanfare and with the aim of bringing the truth (without restrictions) to the 2.0 galaxy, but Truth Social, Donald Trump’s social network, seems to have been confirmed as a monumental failure and it seems difficult for it to achieve eventually take flight.
Launched with the ultimate goal of challenging the great “technological tyrants”, Truth Social was released on February 20. And since then it has chained numerous technical problems, which have condemned it to an absolutely negligible number of users (which has quickly become the subject of ridicule on other 2.0 platforms).
Less than 1.5 million users have registered with Truth Social and many of them also remain on a waiting list (waiting for their accounts to be activated).
Devin Nunes, CEO of the parent company of Truth Social Trump Media & Technology Group (TMTG), announced at the time that the platform would be “fully operational” at the end of March. However, the social network is far from having achieved that goal. And to make matters worse, two important executives would have left the platform last Monday, according to Reuters.
The problems that Truth Social has had to deal with since its inception have ended up becoming hilarious jokes on Twitter (the social network from which Trump was expelled with intemperate boxes more than a year ago).
Apparently the former president of the United States would have been pleased with the limited success of Truth Social, which was born with the aim of dragging his followers and warming up engines for the 2024 elections, where Trump would have planned to concur.
It is also surprising that in Truth Social Trump has published only one post so far. Get ready! Your favorite President Will see you soon!” the former president wrote more than six weeks ago on this platform. Since then the former president, once extraordinarily outspoken on Twitter, has remained silent. Apparently Trump would be waiting for a larger audience on Truth Social to reopen the peak on this platform. Waiting for a larger audience, it seems, are also the acolytes of the former White House tenant.
“It’s been a disaster,” says Joshua Tucker, director of the Center for Social Media and Politics at New York University. The disastrous landing of Trump in the 2.0 universe would apparently be closely related to the technical problems suffered by Truth Social.
Technical difficulties have haunted Truth Social like a bad shadow since its inception
The accumulation of setbacks when using Truth Social begins with registration. Unlike Twitter, this social network allows its users to register only and exclusively through a mobile device. And Truth Social is currently only available on iOS, so 46% of Americans with Android smartphones don’t have access to the app.
That technical difficulties are weighing down Truth Social so noticeably is somewhat surprising because Josh Adams, the app’s chief technology officer, and Billy Boozer, its lead developer, have a lot of tech experience. However, both Adams and Boozer would have jumped ship and would no longer work for Truth Social.
Another question Trump Media & Technology Group (TMTG) must necessarily answer is how he intends to finance the growth of Truth Social. Building a platform with these characteristics from scratch is very expensive, as has already been shown in the case of Twitter, which during its first ten years of life suffered losses of 2,000 million dollars before becoming a profitable company thanks to advertising.
TMTG would initially plan to finance Truth Social through an initial public offering, which would be possible through the company’s merger with Digital World Acquisition Corp (DWAC), another Trump-related company that is already present in the stock markets. However, the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) is investigating that operation and the result of its investigation could take several months.
The problems of Truth Social are in the news at a time when another well-known critic of Twitter (and simultaneously a fan of this platform), Elon Musk, has become a shareholder of the blue bird social network by acquiring 9.2% of the company.
Musk uses Twitter almost as intensively as Trump is accustomed to doing, but he is not blocked on this platform (he has, however, deleted some of his tweets). Just a few weeks ago, the South African businessman accused Twitter of not adhering to the principles of freedom of expression and undermining democracy.
By breaking into Twitter as a shareholder (and also a member of the company’s board of directors), Musk intends to change what he doesn’t like about the social network.
