Trump’s Truth Social Is Already Banning Users, Censoring Content

Earlier this week, former US President Donald Trump’s new social network, Truth Social, officially launched on President’s Day.

It immediately rose to the top of Apple’s App Store rankings, with over 85,000 joining the waitlist queue in the first day alone.

Now, as the waitlist surges to 500,000 individuals awaiting their chance to test out a site that claims to be “free from political discrimination,” it seems that certain users have already been booted off the platform. 

According to Mashable, user Matt Ortega was rejected from registering the username @DevineNunesCow, harking back to a parody Twitter account of former Representative Devin Nunes.

In a bit of a coincidence, Nunes is currently working as the CEO of Trump Media & Technology Group, the site’s parent company. Could that be why the username wasn’t allowed?

On the other end of the spectrum, right-wing personality Stew Peters reported being censored on the app, after he called for the scientists who created the COVID-19 vaccine to be executed.

His post was labeled as “sensitive content” by moderators, requiring users to agree to view the content instead of displaying it as is. 

Despite marketing itself as a less-censored, and a beacon of “freedom of speech,” it has emerged that Truth Social’s moderation policy might actually be stricter than other social media networks, as per Engadget.

As opposed to Twitter, Truth Social users are subject to suspension or bans if they post content that moderators consider to be false, defamatory, or misleading, as well as content deemed “libelous, slanderous, or otherwise objectionable.” 

At the moment, the site relies on a mix of volunteer moderators, user reports, and trained bots to remove content, though it will become harder to control the type of content posted as it grows to accommodate more users. 

This is censorship. pic.twitter.com/Ih6odqlsJh

— Matt Ortega (@MattOrtega) February 22, 2022

Radical anti-vax right-wing broadcaster Stew Peters complains that he's "being censored on Truth Social" simply for demanding that those responsible for the COVID-19 vaccine "be put on trial and executed." pic.twitter.com/Uf9WXA793A

— Right Wing Watch (@RightWingWatch) February 22, 2022

[via Mashable and Engadget, cover image via Matt Smith Photographer / Shutterstock.com]