Donald Trump's Truth Social app is seeing a 93% drop in sign-ups and a 68% drop in traffic after a rocky rollout last month, fraught with technical issues and an extensive waiting list for new sign-ups to actually use the service.
After going live on President's Day, the Twitter-lookalike app saw installs decline by more than 800,000 since its launch week, according to Sensor Tower. Installs on the Apple app store this month have fallen to about 60,000 per week, based on early estimates.
Josh Adams and Billy Boozer—Truth Social's chiefs of technology and product development—joined the venture last year and quickly became central players in its bid to build a social media empire, backed by Trump's brand, to counter what many conservatives deride as "cancel culture" censorship from the left.
Less than a year later, both have resigned their senior posts at a critical juncture for the company's smartphone-app release plans, according to two sources familiar with the venture. The departures followed the troubled launch of the company's iPhone app on February 20th.
Download data shared by the analytics firm Apptopia shows that downloads of the app have plummeted from a peak of 170,000 downloads a day to just 8,000 now. The app is now just the 355th most popular app on Apple devices overall. And those who have downloaded it do not seem to be using it that much.
Daily active users—a metric that social media and tech companies use to measure how many engaged users an app has—stood at just 513,000 as of last week. By contrast, daily active users at Twitter—Trump's erstwhile and beloved social media home—were around 217 million.
In October, Donald Trump announced he was planning to launch a revolutionary technology company.
"I created Truth Social… to stand up to the tyranny of big tech," he said.
"We live in a world where the Taliban has a huge presence on Twitter yet your favourite American president has been silenced."
The app launched on Presidents' Day, 21 February, but six weeks later is beset by problems. A waiting list of nearly 1.5 million are unable to use it. -snip
The House Ethics Committee on Thursday said it is reviewing allegations that Republican Representative Ronny Jackson violated ethics rules. The committee's chairman, Representative Ted Deutch, and top Republican, Representative Jackie Walorski, said in a statement that the panel has extended its review of Jackson after receiving a referral from the Office of Congressional Ethics, an independent watchdog, in late December.
Jackson's office also accused the OCE, which investigates allegations of misconduct by members of both parties, of being a "partisan" and "liberal" group. Trump nominated Jackson to serve as Secretary of Veterans Affairs in 2018. But Jackson ultimately withdrew from consideration after allegations of misconduct emerged, including accusations he drank on the job, sexually harassed a female subordinate, and casually dispensed prescription drugs.
Just days after a verified account for Fox News appeared on Donald Trump's social media app, Truth Social, a Fox News spokesperson says the network has nothing to do with the account.
But that did not stop Truth Social from verifying the account, or its CEO Devin Nunes from welcoming them to the platform.
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Investors clearly would have viewed Fox News' participation as a boon for the struggling app.
It has been eight weeks since the platform went public, and in the weeks that followed, Truth Social has seen significant staff exits, security concerns, long sign-up waitlists, and multiple indications that the app is not seeing a whole lot of usage.
Searching "truth social waitlist" on Twitter finds many people lamenting they had waited for a month or more and their waitlist numbers were not changing. Needless to say, that is not how a waitlist should work; as new users were added, people should have steadily moved up in the list, not stayed the same.
People have posted screenshots showing that their waitlist numbers had actually increased over time. Evidently, the Truth Social waitlist numbers were totally fabricated to create a perception that over a million people were wanting to join.
Alex Jones went on a missive about QAnon on his program yesterday:
"Q is such a horrible thing that I hate even talking about it. It was all a delusion so the Democrats could steal the election.
Do you understand that we lost the country because of Q? And I have to put up with the Q people all over the place! And I'm tired of it!
So I'm not mad at you, but you hit a button! And the damn Q people were the ones that manipulated some people to go into the damn Capitol and work with the feds.
Q is the worst people on Earth! Q is the New World Order! Q is a psyop to lead us around by our noses!"
Jones, of course, has promoted QAnon claims for years, and has had leading QTards on his show many times.
Filing: Truth Social Has No Revenue, Lost $59M in 2021
Truth Social, the Donald Trump-backed social network, aims to attract an "open, free, and honest global conversation" on its platform "without relying on hostile Big Tech companies," according to a new regulatory filing that offers a glimpse into the business.
A major obstacle to fulfilling that mission: The app has not yet attracted any paying advertisers, the filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission shows. And its parent, Trump Media & Technology Group, is losing money and "expects to incur significant losses into the foreseeable future," the filing said.
In the short term, Truth Social appears to be banking on an agreement that could help bolster its user base: It will have an exclusive window on Trump's messages, according to the filing.
That means even if Twitter lifts its ban on Trump, there would be a lag before his comments can appear on any other platform.
"Donald Trump has agreed not to compete with Truth Social for his own benefit," according to the filing from Digital World Acquisition Corp. (DWAC), which is merging with Trump Media & Technology Group, or TMTG. The filing is a registration statement, or S-4, with the SEC about the proposed merger.
To be sure, Mr. Trump is no mere user of the Truth Social—he will serve as chairman of the new company following the merger, and stands to profit from its success given that he is also a major shareholder. In turn, TMTG said that in order to succeed it needs Trump to attract "millions" of his supporters to register for, and regularly use, its platforms.
The real test may be whether Truth Social can transform a head start on Trump's messages into revenue—so far, ad sales are nonexistent, according to the regulatory filing. The company has not yet started charging advertisers, and it may not book any ad sales from Truth Social until 2023, the filing said.
Whether advertisers will open their wallets for Truth Social in the long run remains uncertain, with many advertisers preferring to sidestep content seen as overtly political or controversial.
In 2021, TMTG booked just $2.1 million in "related party" sales from a "licensing agreement with one of the stockholders," although the filing does not provide additional details. It lost $59 million last year.
Among the filing's 66 pages of potential risks for investors are several related to Trump, including if he "were to cease to be able to devote substantial time to Truth Social." Trump's death, incapacity, or harm from "numerous" lawsuits also could impact the company's success, the filing warns.
And it flags Trump's prior track record running businesses: "A number of companies that were associated with Donald Trump have filed for bankruptcy. There can be no assurances that TMTG will not also become bankrupt."
Wow, even his daughter, ex-VP and his wife are not supporting his outlandish claim of a stolen election or his claim of not being involved of a riot he clearly provoked...
Trump has to change course. Sorry bud, you're not going to be president again.
__________________ Sig by Nuke Nixon
Last Edited by Blakemore on Jan 1st, 2000, at 00:00 AM
Mike Lindell: Trump's Reinstatement Can Still Happen
On Monday’s Conservative Daily podcast, Lindell said that he would present new evidence of fraud in August to finally convince Americans the 2020 election was stolen.
"What's going to happen is everyone is going to go, 'Wow, this really happened,'" he said.
"A lot of states have four-year statute of limitations," he added. "So yes, all that could happen, where they overturn the election—it's never happened at the presidential level. Yet."