Despite former President Donald Trump claiming to be an advocate for free speech, his new social media platform is anything but.
According to Truth Social, the platform is an ‘open, free, and honest global conversation without discriminating against political ideology’, and was created by Trump Media & Technology Group.
According to Trump himself, Truth Social was invented to be a free speech haven because he believed forms of censorship have been abused by ‘self-righteous scolds, self-appointed arbiters, Big Tech giants and Big media bosses’.
He said in a statement: “We will not be treating users like lab rats for social experiments, or labelling alternative views as ‘disinformation’.
“We will not silence our fellow citizens simply because they might be wrong — or worse, because we think that Americans ‘can’t handle the truth.’”
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However, this was all fake news.
A recent investigation conducted by Public Citizen, a non-profit progressive consumer rights advocacy group, found that the platform limited and removed anti-Trump posts, specifically content relating to the January 6 riots at the Capitol and pro-choice.
The report read: “In June 2022, Truth Social users reported that any post containing the phrase ‘abortion is healthcare’ would automatically be shadow banned from the platform.”
The investigation also found that conservative posts had been censored.
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Weirdly enough, researchers even posted a picture of The Voice judge Blake Shelton expressing his pro-gun beliefs, which was ultimately removed from the site.
They added that Truth Social was even 'more restrictive' than Twitter, its biggest competitor.
“Truth Social claims to be a haven for uncensored speech, however, their terms of service are so overly broad and ill-defined that they are effectively more restrictive than Twitter, their closest competitor,” they wrote.
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And while there’s nothing ‘inherently’ wrong with limiting content, users are under the impression they are communicating in a completely transparent forum when in reality, Truth Social is just curating an 'echo chamber'.
They concluded: “Studies show that Americans want transparent content moderation policies on their social media platforms, suggesting that the mounting frustration among Truth Social users is likely to grow and continue to hinder the growth of the platform.”
Lead researcher Cheyenne Hunt-Majer told Business Insider India that the platform was ‘a recipe for radicalism and extremism'.
Topics: Donald Trump
Charisa Bossinakis