Last month, TRUTH Social, Donald Trump’s long-promised social media platform, was set to begin beta testing. That was not the case. However, it’s already causing a stir. The new media corporation founded by the former president is already in legal trouble. Its competitors in the world of far-right social media are already accusing it of wrongdoing.
Gab, the “free speech” service that markets itself as a Twitter alternative and has, of course, become a hangout for neo-Nazis, has recently succumbed to a “porn bot” infestation, according to The Daily Beast. Andrew Torba, the platform’s creator and CEO, turned to his own service over the weekend to warn about an alleged breach that included, among other things, accounts promoting “escort” services.
“The porn bots stop right now,” Torba railed in a post. “All new Gab accounts must now be manually approved by our team until further notice.” He even claimed he stayed up till 3 a.m. personally trying to “stop these porn bots.”
Who was to blame for this? Torba had a brilliant idea. “This is the most comprehensive effort we’ve seen in five years,” he added, “and the timing is highly interesting considering that both Truth Social and Rumble received a lot of capital from hedge funds this week to fight with Gab.”
Yes, Torba accused Trump and Rumble, a right-wing YouTube clone from Canada, of collaborating to keep him up all night deleting escort accounts from his lovely site, whose own account occasionally uploads images of dogs with guns. Trump announced plans to collaborate with Rumble on TRUTH Social last week, and the two companies already share some infrastructure.
When (or if) TRUTH Social is released, what will happen to the far-right social media universe? Will everyone who has been banned from Twitter and Facebook for posting violent stuff hop ship to the one run by a man who doesn’t even understand the meaning of words? Or is TRUTH Social doomed to fail because it’s too murky for the real world? But it’s apparent that areas like Gab are tense.
