The shared truth. Nothing less. On February 21, Donald Trump launched his own social network, Truth Social. A response to his ban from Twitter, after the Capitol stormed on January 6, 2021. “We live in a world where the Taliban have a huge presence on Twitter while your favorite American president has been silenced. This is unacceptable “said the former US president. But six months after its launch, its new megaphone rings hollow. After a chaotic launch delayed by repeated bugs, the platform is struggling to take off: around 513,000 daily users. By comparison, Twitter shows 238 million.
Truth Social only looks like Twitter: on the model of “tweets” and “re-tweets”, it publishes “truths” and “re-truths”. However, it is difficult to unearth truths there. The publications generally follow an ultra-radical conservative line, even radically conspiratorial. An alternate digital reality, in which Joe Biden is a dangerous pedophile, the organizers of the Capitol assault are Ukrainian neo-Nazis, and Ukraine attacked Russia.
Analysis of this commercial failure, with insights from Thomas Huchon, journalist and social media specialist.
