Former US President Donald Trump has announced plans to launch a new social media network called TRUTH Social. Once again, a liar is the loudest in demanding the truth.

Trump said the platform would “stand up to the tyranny of big tech companies”, accusing them of silencing opposition voices in the US. Social media has played a key role in Mr Trump’s fight for the White House and has been his favourite communication tool as president. But Mr Trump was banned from Twitter and suspended from Facebook after his supporters stormed the US Capitol.

Throughout Trump’s presidency, social media companies have been under pressure to ban him, as his posts are offensive, inflammatory, or outright untrue (rightly so – ed.). Last year, Twitter and Facebook began deleting some of his posts or labelling them misleading, for example, one in which he claimed that Covid was “less deadly” than the flu.

The decision to ban or suspend him was taken after the January riots, which followed a speech in which he made unsubstantiated claims of electoral fraud. Responding to the riots, Mr Trump called the Capitol besiegers “patriots” and showed no sign of accepting the election results, prompting Twitter and Facebook to decide it was too risky to allow him to continue using their sites.

Since then, Trump and his advisers have hinted at plans to create a rival social networking site. Earlier this year, he launched From the Desk of Donald J Trump, often referred to as a blog. The place was shut down less than a month after its launch, after attracting only a fraction of the audience it could have drawn through its already established sites. According to its lead consultant Jason Miller, it was “just an adjunct to the wider efforts we have been working on and have been working on”.

According to a statement from Trump Media & Technology Group, an early version of its latest venture, TRUTH Social, will open its doors to guests next month, with a “nationwide launch” in the first three months of 2022, according to a statement from Trump Media & Technology Group (TMTG). “We live in a world where the Taliban has a huge presence on Twitter, yet their favourite American president has been silenced,” Mr Trump wrote. “Everyone asks me, why doesn’t someone stand up to Big Tech? Well, we will soon!” he added.

Woe is us, we add (ed.).

Source: BBC News