Donald Trump's New App Has Users Seeing Red
Former President Donald Trump was once an avid user of social media, even before his presidential run. But once he started campaigning for the presidency, his social media accounts allowed him to reach out directly to his potential voters (via BBC). In fact, just before the 2020 election, Trump was asked by a journalist whether he felt his controversial tweets were hurting his campaign, to which he responded, "No, I think I wouldn't be here if I didn't have social media... and frankly if I didn't have social media I'd have no way of getting out my voice" (via BBC).
Unfortunately for the former president, however, his privileges to use social media platforms like Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube were revoked by the companies themselves, citing concerns that he was spreading dangerously false information and had, according to some, used these platforms to incite his followers to storm the American Capitol on January 6, 2021. In response to this silencing, Trump promised to create his own social media platform where he could commiserate with his supporters (via The Independent). But now that the app exists, it isn't having the positive reception Trump probably hoped for.
The problem with the app
This past October, Trump announced via his spokesperson, who is still on Twitter, that he "created TRUTH Social ... to stand up to the tyranny of Big Tech" (via The Independent). The statement continued "We live in a world where the Taliban has a huge presence on Twitter, yet your favorite American President has been silenced. This is unacceptable. I am excited to send out my first TRUTH on TRUTH Social very soon."
The app officially launched on February 21, but there seems to be a major hitch in the plan; even though the app quickly jumped to the top of Apple's most-downloaded list, users are finding themselves in a never-ending line of wait-listers and have yet to be able to actually use the app. This is leaving many who were once excited about the platform very frustrated.
One user complained via Twitter, "I created my account within 5 minutes of it going live ... My email said my waitlist number was 25,021. I got up the next morning [and] it had jumped. And hasn't moved in a week!" And many others are echoing this sentiment, saying things like "I started at number 1800 or so ... Now im 94k. And it's not updating. I'm pretty much over it" (via The Independent).
It's yet to be seen if this will be fixed in a timely enough manner for users to stick around.