October 26, 2021

By Bill Berkowitz

Defaced by pranksters, hackers posting a defecating pig photo on a fake Donald Trump account, Saturday Night Live comparing it to a National Sex Offenders Registry, and charges that it violated a free software licensing agreement by ripping off open-source decentralized social network Mastodon, marked the days following Trump’s announcement that he was forming a new Twitter-like social media site with the Orwellian name, Truth Social. Despite the rough start, money was being made.

Truth social will undoubtedly be spreading malignant falsehoods, host bushels full of despicables, make millions from supporters, and serve as a launching pad for a Trump 2024 presidential campaign.

One of the network’s rules: No criticism of Trump! The site will ban any content that would “disparage, tarnish, or otherwise harm, in our opinion, us and/or the Site,” the terms state. In addition, the company said it is “not responsible for … any Third-Party Content posted on, available through, or installed from the Site, including [its] content, accuracy, offensiveness, opinions [or] reliability.”

The Washington Post reported that “In a presentation … Trump Media & Technology Group… hailed the new social network as the first tentpole for a Trump-led media, news and Internet empire that would one day compete with CNN, Disney and Facebook.”

In his announcement, Trump, suspended by both Twitter and FaceBook, said the new platform would "stand up to the tyranny of big tech." "We live in a world where the Taliban has a huge presence on Twitter, yet your favorite American President has been silenced," wrote Trump. "Everyone asks me why doesn't someone stand up to Big Tech? Well, we will be soon!" he added.

According to the BBC, “An early version of his latest venture, TRUTH Social, will be open to invited guests next month, and will have a "nationwide rollout" within the first three months of 2022, according to a statement by Trump Media & Technology Group (TMTG).”

The BBC’s James Clayton reported that “TMTG, which [Trump] chairs, also intends to launch a subscription video-on-demand service.,” saying that “its video-on-demand service would ‘feature ‘non-woke' entertainment programming, news, podcasts, and more.’"

“Donald Trump announced the launch of his own social media network that he’s calling Truth Social, but most people know it by its original name: The National Sex Offender Registry” SNL’s Weekend Update co-host Michael Che noted.

According to The Verge’s Ado Robertson, “The Software Freedom Conservancy (SFC) says former President Donald Trump’s new social network violated a free and open-source software licensing agreement by ripping off decentralized social network Mastodon.” TMTG “has 30 days to comply with the terms of the license before its access is terminated — forcing it to rebuild the platform or face legal action.”

“The license purposefully treats everyone equally (even people we don’t like or agree with), but they must operate under the same rules of the copyleft licenses that apply to everyone else,” SFC policy fellow Bradley Kuhn wrote in a blog post. “Today, we saw the Trump Media and Technology Group ignoring those important rules — which were designed for the social good.”

Truth Social Is Making Money

“This week, a company – Digital World Acquisition Corp. (DWAC) -- that doesn’t do any business saw its stock soar as much as 400 percent on word it would help launch Donald Trump’s social media platform,” The Washington Post reported. Trump’s venture centers around “special purpose acquisition companies, or SPACs, which exist solely to raise money from investors and find a private company with which to merge and go public.

For the uninitiated, including this writer, The Washington Post’s Hamza Shaban explained SPACs:

SPACs are essentially shell companies that allow groups of investors to raise money, list on a stock exchange, and then quickly take a private company public in a way that bypasses the rigorous process of a traditional IPO.

SPACs are also known as “blank check" companies because they exist as pools of cash without an explicit investment target — until they find their corporate soul mates.

SPACs have drawn immense interest in the past year because they can save companies and investors time and money. They allow stakeholders to strike quickly, taking advantage, for example, of the dramatic upturn on Wall Street, where the S&P 500, a benchmark for the market, has nearly doubled since the initial shocks of the pandemic.

Shaban pointed out that DWAC “already is posting staggering gains. Last week, before the Trump venture was announced, DWAC was trading around $10 a share. On Thursday, it shot up to $40. On Friday, it closed near $94, up 107 percent on the day.”

How will Trump fare financially? “There’s nothing surprising [about Trump’s approach]. The only surprising thing would be if he actually put his own money into it. He’s always an other-people’s-money people guy,” Gwenda Blair, who wrote a biography of Trump, his father and his grandfather, told The Washington Post. “What’s the downside? It’s all upside,” she added.

Trump’s previous “publicly traded company Trump Entertainment Resorts, which included his Atlantic City casinos. It operated for roughly two decades starting in 1995, but for Trump’s investors, it was a disaster: The company lost more than $1 billion, its stock price nosedived, and it filed for bankruptcy three times, in 2004, 2009 and 2014. Trump himself made out well, however: He collected more than $44 million in salary, bonuses and other compensation,” Shaban reported.

Truth Social’s listing on Apple’s App Store said the site will be a place for families with “varied opinions” to come “together to have an amazing time and share their viewpoints of the world.” Meanwhile, Donald Trump Jr. scooted over to Fox News to promote Truth Social. He said that the “platform [was] for everyone to express their feelings”