WASHINGTON, DC —
Donald Trump promised his
Truth Social platform would offer a home for free speech, an unfiltered way to
reach people.
اضافة اعلان
Six months later, the former US president’s
amplification of conspiratorial memes and messages after the FBI searched his
Mar-a-Lago estate indicates that extremist content has flourished.
Still, with midterm elections looming, an AFP
analysis shows his new bullhorn may be far less politically relevant than his
past pronouncements on Twitter and Facebook.
“His reach is much smaller,” said Mike Rothschild,
the author of a book on the QAnon conspiracy theory. “Truth Social is pretty
much MAGA-only territory.”
Trump’s August 30
posting spree on Truth Social indicates a lurch toward the darkest corners of
conspiracy theory, almost two years after he lost the presidency to
Joe Biden.
Trump interacted with a meme that was shared in
reply to a post highlighting the writings of “Q,” the anonymous persona whose
posts on fringe forums gave rise to QAnon and its baseless claims about a cabal
of Satan-worshiping pedophiles including Hillary Clinton.
“Trump has certainly amplified Q content before. He
had retweeted Q believers or memes over 300 times on Twitter,” Rothschild said.
“But he had never shared something directly connected to a Q drop before.”
The meme Trump shared referenced “the storm,” a mass
unsealing of indictments promised in QAnon lore that would culminate in his
return to the
White House.
He also re-posted images that put the words “your
enemy is not in Russia” over the faces of top Democrats, including Biden.
It was a sign of what Truth Social — and Trump’s
potential 2024 campaign — could look like as the November 8 midterms approach.
“Trump’s most ardent supporters will follow him
wherever he goes,” said Caroline Orr Bueno, a postdoctoral research associate
at the University of Maryland.
“So although his messages may be reaching a smaller
audience, those who are still following him are likely a more hardcore group of
supporters who may be more easily incited to violence.”
Echo chamber
Truth Social launched in
February 2022 as Trump’s response to his ban from Twitter and
two-year-suspension from Facebook following the January 6, 2021 attack on the
US Capitol.
But Trump has just four million followers on Truth
Social — a far cry from the 88.8 million he had on Twitter or the 35.4 million
he had on Facebook.
“It’s almost
entirely Trump supporters,” said David Thiel, a researcher at the Stanford
Internet Observatory, of Truth Social’s user base.
Trump’s Truth Social posts are regularly promoted on
other platforms popular with his supporters, such as Telegram and the far-right
forum “The Donald,” as well as on mainstream sites. Major Republican Party
players also repeat his talking points.
But the direct pipeline to the public he had as
president is gone.
Truth Social had 1.19 million monthly active users
on
Apple iPhones in July, according to data.ai, a company that tracks app
metrics, compared with the 237.8 million daily active users Twitter counted in
its latest quarterly report.
The app has been downloaded 3.08 million times
globally since February, while Twitter and Facebook have logged 97 million and
341 million downloads respectively in the same time frame — and billions more
in their existence.
“Even though Trump has this megaphone and is able to
get attention for whatever new crazy thing he posts on Truth Social, it is
several multiples less powerful than Twitter, several multiples less powerful
than Facebook,” said Jared Holt, senior research manager at the Institute for
Strategic Dialogue, a nonprofit London-based think tank focused on extremism.
“It is a very closed feedback loop.”
A loyal base of Truth Social users who express
support for Trump and share misinformation about topics such as the 2020
election remains.
“Truth Social has become a refuge of sorts for
people and content that have been banned from other platforms,” Orr Bueno said.
NewsGuard, a service that tracks online
misinformation, found 88 QAnon-promoting accounts with over 10,000 followers on
Truth Social, including 32 that were previously booted off Twitter. Forty-seven
of those accounts were verified by the Trump platform.
At least one app provider seems to have taken note.
Google has not approved Truth Social for its store used by Android smartphone
users, citing problems with content moderation.
“It appears to attract people with extremist views
and then provides a safe haven where they can feed off each other without
worrying about being reported or banned,” Orr Bueno said. “It’s an environment
that can be easily exploited by those seeking to incite violence or radicalize
people.”
Truth Social did not immediately reply to a request
for comment.
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