Trump Isn’t Concerned About Free Speech, Just A Free Audience
from the neither-true-not-social dept
I have to admit that it’s been somewhat amusing watching Truth Social flop. After months of rumors (and a variety of competitors targeting the Trumpworld), Trump announced plans for his own Twitter clone, Truth Social, in October of last year, using a sketchy financial instrument to fund it. He found a perfect dupe in Congressman Devin Nunes to run the operation, whose only relevant experience seems to be suing Twitter accounts that mocked him. The promise of a “free speech” supporting, Trumpist world, social media dissolved into obvious parody as Nunes promised the site would be heavily moderated with a ridiculous set of rules. There were already reports that the site was having difficulty attracting users, perhaps because Trumpist “influencers” were whining that it’s no fun if they’re not upsetting the right people.
And now, more reports are coming out about just how much of a flop Truth Social is so far. An analysis of traffic to the site shows that it’s in free fall.
The former president’s social media network for MAGA disciples has sunk to about 60,000 new users a week.
“This is down 93% from its launch week, when it saw 872,000 installs during the week of Feb. 21,” Stephanie Chan of the analytics site Sensor Tower told The Wrap. “We estimate that Truth Social has so far reached approximately 1.2 million installs since its launch.”
Truthsocial.com reportedly has fallen to 1.9 million weekly visits from a high of 6 million in the debut week for the Twitter-like platform, according to Similarweb stats cited by the news website.
As we’ve noted before, the problem for the people who complain about being moderated off of Twitter is not actually about free speech at all. Indeed, Twitter’s policies actually do plenty to enable strong free speech principles. The real issue is that Trump and his friends didn’t want a platform for “free speech,” they wanted a “free audience” to rile up.
And no matter what you think of the 1st Amendment or “free speech principles,” they don’t automatically grant you the power to force people to listen.
Filed Under: devin nunes, donald trump, free speech, social media
Companies: truth social
Comments on “Trump Isn’t Concerned About Free Speech, Just A Free Audience”
In the words of Slappy Squirrel:
Now that’s comedy!
Re:
At my first glance at the site name I read it as
Nor do they grant you an audience!!
No one wants to swim in the sewage, go figure
Oh the schadenfreude, with numbers like that it looks like even most of his cultists can’t be bothered to use the platform, something which must be quite the gutpunch for a raging narcissist like Trump.
That aside I can’t say I’m at all surprised by the sharp decline in average users and the relatively trivial user base, given their target audience they were doomed to failure from the get-go since no-one but his cultists and those aiming to troll them were ever going to spend significant time there and as a previous article noted it’s not as fun for that sort of people when the only ones they have to tear into are their own.
Re:
I doubt even the ones aiming to troll Trump’s loyal dregs were going to spend “significant time” doing that, given the site’s monthly subscription fee.
Conservatives want readers and followers and to provoke reactions from spreading fake news and attacking minoritys, woke liberals, trans rights, demeaning women’s rights, they want a wide audience, including liberals, you can’t upset libs if no one reads your posts or retweets your comments,
They want the ability to shock the libs but the problem is many services like twitter will ban users if they post hate speech, defamation or misinformation eg the price of free speech is people may react in a negative way if you post extreme racist content or fake news that’s how society works
Re: Just wish
There was a line in the 1st amendment to differentiate Lie’s and Opinion.
You cant tell me that “he told me” is a good standard for Knowledge. You cant say you read it in a book from the Late 1800’s to early 1900’s, thats been DEBUNKED for 100 years.
You cant tell me, that the ‘White’ men, didnt do things to the other races, Just to piss them off.
Nunes a dupe?
I wouldn’t consider Nunes a dupe in this scenario. I find it much more likely that this is how he gets paid for all those years licking Trump’s boots. The site was designed to fail. But there’s a bunch of insiders that are still going to make money off it.
Re: yep
Flash in the pan.
How many sites let you Bring up an idea, get money, and MAKE the idea?
How many have taken advantage of that? Jumped in for about 1-3 months with Tons of promise, get 10 times what they wanted, and RAN with the money.
Some got the money, Made the ITEM, left the people high and dry and sold it on the open market, esp after development cost took all the money.
Then there is the stock market. And there are no RULES against it. Startup company with promises and wishes. Show off a few things, and Run like hell before anyone figures it out.
LOVE CAPITALISM. esp when the rule are removed.
Hilarious
They can dish it out, but don’t dare expect them to take their own medicine.
My shocked face
It’s just shocking that a big group of Trump supporters is boring, even to themselves.
“Truthsocial.com reportedly has fallen to 1.9 million weekly visits from a high of 6 million in the debut week”
Well, as I understand it, people have to wait a while before their signup is approved. It’s hard to get people to return to a site they can’t use because they’re waiting for an account before they can use it.
Re: Logic
How does a slow sign up process explain the reduction in users? They have to be leaving faster than they’re joining if the numbers are still going down.
Re: Re:
Well, both things are happening at the same time. A slow signup process means that there’s not enough people coming in to counter the attrition, while a low user base due to to the slow signup process makes people return to other platforms.
Think of a bar – if security on the outside spends 5 minutes checking everyone’s ID, the people already inside will get bored and go elsewhere, no matter how big the queue outside it.
Truth Social: as much impact as a fart in a clyclone.
Truth Social: About as much impact as a fart in a cyclone.
They owned the libs, then wondered why there were no more libs for them to own.
Re:
Well, they didn’t…
But, if your whole identity is “owning the libs” and you join a platform whose whole purpose is not letting them speak, you’re going to get bored very quickly. Especially when your definition of “libs” is “people on speaking terms with verifiable reality”.