Trump’s new Truth Social joins the fray – Press Enterprise

Last weekend, President Donald Trump’s social media competitor Twitter – dubbed Truth Social – finally went public. The app bills itself as “America’s ‘Big Tent’ social media platform, promoting open, free, and honest global conversation without discriminating against political ideologies.”

When the social media app failed to launch, hundreds of thousands of people were put on waiting lists to set up their accounts.

Will it be more successful than other social media apps that cater to people who no longer feel at home on mainstream social media apps like Facebook or Twitter?

Maybe, maybe not. But that’s not necessarily the most important thing.

The lesson here is simple but important.

While many complain about the increasingly censorship tendencies of social media companies, which rose to prominence precisely because they made open platforms available to virtually anyone, there was always an opportunity for people to launch competitive services to engage consumers serve those who are no longer satisfied with existing providers.

It’s been a little over a year since President Donald Trump was banned from Twitter. He, in turn, responded by filing a stupid lawsuit against Twitter, Facebook, and Google.

However, as Twitter recently argued in court, “Trump agreed to abide by Twitter’s rules and yet repeatedly violated those rules,” culminating in his removal from Twitter.

It is really that easy. Private companies are mostly free to set their own rules, their own terms and conditions. There is no constitutional right to tweet on Twitter.

Even Truth Social has its own rules. Former Congressman Devin Nunes, who is now the CEO of the company behind Truth Social, told Fox Business last month, “We want to be very family-friendly, we want this to be a very safe place and we’re focused on making sure there’s no illegal content.” are not on the page.”

The launch of Truth Social is the much more sensible alternative. If Trump and others can’t use Twitter, perhaps Truth Social is the answer that will satisfy their need to get their thoughts out there.

Of course, these efforts may or may not be more successful than Gab or Parler, social media platforms that also attempted to serve as alternatives to the dominant social media companies.

But that’s how the free market works.

Success is not guaranteed. Results may vary. Entrepreneurs’ expectations and intentions do not necessarily translate into real results.

What matters is that individuals are free to offer market alternatives and consumers have a multitude of choices.

This is how capitalism works, how societies prosper, how the internet flourished, how social media giants emerged (and fell).

Rather than relying on disputes or the law, critics of the dominant social media companies should pursue their own ventures and fill in the gaps left by the status quo.