Louise Bernard with AFP
modified to
9:50 a.m., October 14, 2022
Donald Trump’s network, Truth Social, can now be downloaded from the Google Play Store, while the Internet giant refused it this summer, judging the moderation of content insufficient on the platform of the former American president. Truth Social has finally agreed to update its app to ensure its policy on removing messages inciting violence is enforced.
Financial difficulties
Launched at the end of February, Truth Social aims to be an alternative to the major social networks, Twitter in particular, from which Donald Trump has been suspended since the beginning of January 2021, with freedom of expression for leitmotif and a minimum moderation of content. But he is struggling for the moment to take off and is facing financial difficulties.
Trump Media and Technology Group (TMTG), the parent company of Truth Social, welcomed “this major step in our mission to restore freedom of expression online”. Last week, the network was authorized on the application store of Samsung in the United States, the Galaxy Store.
Content moderation
Google had refused to welcome the platform on its Play Store in August, considering the moderation of content as “insufficient”. The world’s largest online advertising company said it had told Truth Social about “several violations” of app store policies. The Californian group said it had “again indicated that having effective systems for moderating user-generated content was a (necessary) condition for an application to be posted on Google Play”.
QAnon conspiracy
TMTG has been waiting for months to finalize its merger with a listed vehicle, Digital World Acquisition Corp (DWAC), which should allow it to enter the stock market and thus receive fresh money. DWAC’s stock rose nearly 9% in electronic trading after the New York Stock Exchange closed on Wednesday.
Excluded from major platforms, Donald Trump found only a fraction of his followers on Truth Social. He is currently followed there by 4.18 million people, compared to 88.8 million on Twitter and 35.4 million on Facebook before his ouster for encouraging his supporters during the invasion of the Capitol on January 6, 2021, which had made several deaths.
The social network is used in particular by fans of the QAnon nebula to relay their conspiracy theories linking, for example, personalities from the American Democratic Party like Hillary Clinton to a satanist and pedophile network. NewsGuard, which rates news sources based on their trustworthiness, found 88 accounts sharing QAnon content with more than 10,000 followers on Truth Social, more than half of whom were “verified,” and more than a third had been banned from Twitter.