Truth Social, a new social media platform from former President Donald Trump, launches Monday, almost a year after tech giants Twitter, Facebook and YouTube stripped Trump of his favorite megaphones and accused him of glorifying and inciting violence that threatened democracy when he repeated false claims that the 2020 election was rigged and praised the mob attacking the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.
Trump, whose misleading posts on the COVID-19 pandemic and false assertions of widespread election fraud led to unprecedented fact-checking flags and warnings from social media networks, has been posting frequent statements through his political action committee, endorsing Republican candidates who question the 2020 election results and insisting that investigations into his presidency and business are nothing more than politicized hoaxes.
Claiming that tech leaders stifled free speech and undercut Trump and his followers’ voices, the former president previously launched a website last year, “From the Desk of Donald J. Trump,” but users could not interact and it failed to gain traction. The site shut down after about a month.
Truth Social, run by Trump Media & Technology Group, was announced in October.
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