Former US President Donald Trump plans to launch his own online network shortly. Truth Social is the name of the platform with which he will stand up to “the tyranny” of the big tech companies, Trump said on Wednesday. A test version for selected users should therefore go online in November. The full version will then be available to the general public at the beginning of next year.
“We live in a world where the Taliban have a large presence on Twitter, but your favorite American president has been silenced,” Trump said. “This is unacceptable.” That is why he founded the Trump Media & Technology Group (TMTG). TMTG should therefore also bring a video service to the start that will concentrate on politically incorrect entertainment formats.
Trump was highly active on online networks during his tenure, particularly on Twitter. However, after storming the Capitol during the formal confirmation of the election victory of his presidential challenger, Joe Biden, on January 6, he was charged with poking people online. The most important networks then blocked his profiles.
Facebook, where Trump had 35 million followers, banned the Republican indefinitely on May 7. “Because of the risk of further incitement to violence”, Twitter shut down Trump’s account with almost 89 million followers a short time later. Youtube, Instagram, Snapchat and others followed. Since then, Trump has been looking for ways to regain his former reach via the online networks.
He has so far not been successful with lawsuits against the tech companies. In May he started a blog called “From the Desk of Donald J. Trump”. However, the website was taken offline a month later. His former advisor Jason Miller founded the online network Gettr earlier this year, but Trump has not yet joined it.
Shortly after Truth Social announced, Miller congratulated his ex-boss on “getting back into social media.” “Now Facebook and Twitter will lose even more market share,” he said.
