(New York) Truth Social didn’t want me to feel like just a number.
Posted at 7:00 p.m.
” Thank you for signing up ! “Wrote me the social network of Donald Trump in an email, on March 3. “Due to high demand, we have placed you on our waiting list. We love you, and you’re not just another number for us! But your waitlist number is above. »
So despite those automated niceties, I was number 1,037,995. Twelve days after its official launch, Truth Social, which was to free Americans from the “tyranny of Big Tech,” had yet to address its technical issues. . And the “high demand” was just an excuse for a spectacular mess. Sad !
However, four weeks later, when my inability to access the network was at 1 037 995and aside from my worries, I received a new email from Truth Social. The network confirmed my username and welcomed me “to our community of truth seekers.”
“Furthermore, I could read at the end of the email, we kindly remind you that we are a new platform and that we are still in the process of fixing many bugs in our technology. »
Never mind !
I first subscribed to the account of the master of the house, Donald Trump, whose network is a carbon copy of Twitter, with a few variations (tweets are called “truths”, for example). We were only hundreds of thousands of people who did, a tiny fraction of the approximately 80 million followers of the old Twitter feed of the 45and President.
This small number probably explains why the man who prided himself on being the Ernest Hemingway of Twitter published only one “truth” on February 14: “Get ready! Your favorite president will see you soon! »
Patriots and Christians
In the meantime, I’ve continued to subscribe to all the big names in the American right that are on Truth Social, including Donald Trump’s adult children. First observation: several personalities, including Donald Trump Jr., are content to republish on Truth Social the tweets they first compose on Twitter, where they sometimes have 10 times more subscribers.
PHOTO EMILY ELCONIN, REUTERS ARCHIVES
Donald Trump, former President of the United States, at a rally in Michigan, April 2
Second observation: the slightest sign of activity from a user earns him subscribers. At the time of writing these lines, I have just received an “alert” informing me that @LaurenBoebart is following my account in turn.
The lady should not be confused with Colorado Republican Rep. Lauren Boebert, though the two may share some ideas. Lauren Boebart’s avatar shows a woman holding a poster that reads: “A dead pedophile does not reoffend”.
(Pedophilia, associated with Democrats, is a favorite topic at Truth Social, closely followed by Hunter Biden’s computer.)
Several of my subscribers define themselves as patriots or Christians. This is particularly the case of @rren, who is however not a great “seeker of truth”. Its thread is sewn with several dubious statements, one of which, attributed to the late rocker Kurt Cobain, has been denied a thousand times: “We will elect a real outsider when we are fully mature. I wouldn’t be surprised if he’s a business tycoon who can’t be bought off and does what’s right for the people. Someone like Donald Trump, crazy as that sounds. »
But this type of intervention is not what distinguishes Truth Social from Twitter, where falsehoods are also legion. If the network co-founded by Jack Dorsey is often accused of not representing the real world well, that of Donald Trump does not even seem to make an effort to do so.
To dive into Truth Social is to discover a parallel universe.
Ukraine? Not today…
Let’s take Tuesday as an example. That day, images of Boutcha continue to dominate the news and haunt the world. Before the United Nations Security Council, Volodymyr Zelensky delivers an incandescent speech. On Twitter, no topic generates more engagement.
Meanwhile, Truth Social is all about Special Prosecutor John Durham, assigned to investigate the origins of the Russian investigation by William Barr, when the latter was Attorney General of the United States.
“Durham. Durham. Durham. Durham. Nothing matters more than this right now,” wrote Fox News reporter Lara Logan, who grabbed attention last December by comparing the Dr Anthony Fauci to Nazi doctor Josef Mengele.
In a court document filed Monday in federal court, John Durham insinuated that a lawyer close to the Democratic Party, accused of lying to the FBI in September 2016, had participated in a “conspiracy” involving Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign to amplify suspicions of collusion between Donald Trump and Russia.
“A huge bomb,” wrote one user in one of the many “truths” relayed on this subject by Devin Nunes, former Republican representative from California and managing director of Trump Media & Technology Group (TMTG), the company that oversees Truth Social.
Nunes, who must manage the failures of Donald Trump’s social network, had ignored the day before the numerous articles published elsewhere on the technical and financial setbacks of TMTG. After two Truth Social executives resigned, the publicly traded shell that is to merge with TMTG fell 12% to $55.03 (at the time of this writing, its stock was worth $46.59).
All this makes Donald Trump furious, according to the washington post. To the point that he would even consider abandoning Truth Social for Gettr, one of the rival conservative platforms, whose application has been downloaded 6.8 million times in all, which places it far ahead of the network of the ex-president. , with 1.2 million installs.
Would I follow Donald Trump at Gettr? As a “truth seeker”, I would have no choice.