Former US President Donald Trump’s new social media network, Truth Social, will be launching on Presidents’ Day on 21 February, according to an App Store listing. The network was announced last year and aims to be an alternative to mainstream social sites such as Facebook and Twitter, with the latter permanently banning Trump’s account after the capitol riot in Washington.
From the screenshots on the App Store listing, the app seems to share many similarities with Twitter. Users can follow accounts, chat with others, and the posts themselves feature a reply, retweet, like, and share button. East post is called a Truth and its retweet equivalent is called a Re-Truth.
Truth Social is run by Trump Media & Technology Group (TMTG), which plans to go public via an SPAC merger with Digital World Acquisition Corp (DWAC) at a valuation of US$875 million (~RM3.68 billion). The company’s overview claims that the social network will use a “big tent” approach to build a “non-cancellable” global community.
The social media app is only the first of three stages for TMTG. The company also plans on launching an on-demand streaming service called TMTG+, which will include entertainment, news, and podcasts. It is also working on a “long-term opportunity TMTG tech stack”, which aims at competing with Amazon’s AWS, Google’s Cloud, Microsoft’s Azure, and payment processor Stripe.
Truth Social is built using Mastodon’s source code, which is an open-source social platform. Mastodon called out the site for not providing its source code as per the software license requirements, though Truth Social has since made its source code public not long after the complaint. The Trump app is also partnering with Rumble to provide video and streaming technology.
The app is available for pre-order now on the App Store, but it doesn’t seem to be available in Malaysia. There is no word on whether it will be coming to Android, nor is there a launch date for its website, which currently only has a form for a waiting list.
(Source: Reuters)
