With Elon Musk’s recent acquisition of Twitter and his promises of reforming the platform, many who have left Twitter (either of their own accord or by being banned from the platform) are anxious to return. But one notable figure says he will not return. Donald Trump — booted from Twitter amid false claims that he used the platform to foment an insurrection — says he will stick with his own social media platform, Truth Social.
In the wake of the January 6, 2021 Capitol riot, Trump saw his social-media accounts with Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and Snapchat permanently suspended. Twitter went so far as to characterize several of the president’s tweets as carrying “the risk of further incitement of violence.”
In a blog post dated January 8, 2021, Twitter attempted to justify its decision to ban a sitting president. The justification fell flat, though, since it was based on two tweets sent that same day. One tweet said:
The 75,000,000 great American Patriots who voted for me, AMERICA FIRST, and MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN, will have a GIANT VOICE long into the future. They will not be disrespected or treated unfairly in any way, shape or form!!!
The other tweet said:
To all of those who have asked, I will not be going to the Inauguration on January 20th.
Having decided to ban Trump from the platform, the social-media masters at Twitter decided that the tweets were “in violation of the Glorification of Violence Policy and the user @realDonaldTrump should be immediately permanently suspended from the service.”
Never mind that nothing in either of those tweets — taken separately or in tandem — could remotely be taken as a glorification of violence. Twitter — having decided to ban Trump for something, anything — decided this was good enough. It’s more than a little like the man who refused to lend his mower to his neighbor, explaining that his wife was making spaghetti that night. When the confused neighbor asked what that had to do with lending his mower, the man replied, “Nothing. But I don’t want to lend you my mower, one excuse is just as good as another.”
Such flagrant injustices have been common with Twitter for years now, with conservatives almost always on the receiving end.
But when Musk began his recent takeover of Twitter, he made it clear that there would be changes with a new sheriff in town. And while he has not specifically said he would reinstate President Trump’s account, such a move on Musk’s part would be expected.
But while the offer has not yet materialized, Trump has already made his answer clear: Thanks, but no thanks.
Trump told Fox News that he will formally join his own TRUTH Social over the next seven days, as planned. “I am not going on Twitter, I am going to stay on TRUTH,” Trump said, adding, “I hope Elon buys Twitter because he’ll make improvements to it and he is a good man, but I am going to be staying on TRUTH.”
There is a bit of history between Trump’s Twitter ban, the creation of Truth Social, and Musk’s purchase of Twitter. As NDTV explains:
Four days after Twitter permanently suspended Donald Trump’s account on January 8, 2021, the then-US president’s son pleaded with entrepreneur Elon Musk to employ his “brilliance” to launch a social media platform that “isn’t biased” to crush the competition.
While Musk did not answer the call at that time, it appears that it may have planted a seed that eventually grew into Musk’s takeover of Twitter. In the interim, however, Trump created his own social-media platform to allow a level playing field for conservatives in the social-media space.
And while Trump’s Truth Social is a fairly new player in that space, it is also already a heavy hitter. Musk tweeted that Truth Social is beating both Twitter and TikTok in downloads.
As of this writing, Musk’s Trump-affirming tweet has over 402,000 likes and nearly 40,000 retweets.
Truth Social got off to a rocky start, but for a very positive reason. The service launched on February 21, and suffered severe scaling problems, leading to a lower-than-expected user base. It appears that Trump — in an uncharacteristic move — may have underestimated demand for the service. Users overwhelmed the service and found it difficult to download the app, sign up for an account, and use the service.
But that has been fixed.
As The New American reported Monday, Truth Social has moved to Rumble’s cloud service. This allows much better scalability and protects the service from being scrubbed by Big Tech. According to Rumble,
Truth Social, the social media platform created by the Trump Media & Technology Group (TMTG), has successfully migrated … to Rumble’s cloud infrastructure. This migration will enable the Truth Social platform to scale significantly on a new and cancel-culture-free cloud platform.
We noted:
“Scale significantly” is the operative phrase. Prior to being unceremoniously booted from Twitter following the faux Capitol “insurrection” in January 2021, Donald Trump had nearly 90 million followers.
In October Trump formally announced the creation of TMTG, named former California Congressman Devin Nunes to head it up, and initially launched in February using hosting service Mastodon.
So many of Trump’s followers stampeded onto the platform that more than a million were wait-listed while the system underwent its beta testing.
So, with Truth Social having solved its scalability issues, protected itself from being silenced, and currently outpacing both Twitter and TikTok in downloads, it makes sense for Trump to stay with his own brand, even while wishing Twitter well. While Trump and Musk seem to get along well enough and their platforms are not yet in direct competition, Trump did say that he has heard from Truth Social users that they prefer his platform to Twitter. “We’re taking in millions of people, and what we’re finding is that the response on TRUTH is much better than being on Twitter,” Trump said, adding, “Twitter has bots and fake accounts, and we are doing everything we can.” He went on to say, “The bottom line is, no, I am not going back to Twitter.”
As to the possibility of being in direct competition with Twitter, Trump — who seems to understand that Truth Social appeals to a narrower market — said that Musk’s acquisition of Twitter (and the changes Musk will almost certainly make) “is good.” He added, “We want liberty and justice and fairness in our country, and the more we can have open, the better,” but said, “But no, I don’t view that as a competition for what I am doing.”
