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Trump's Truth Social tops downloads on Apple App Store; many waitlisted
- steele 5y ago
- dgellow 5y agoYou don't need the FBI variable here, they decided by themselves to create their own honeypot.
- andrewclunn 5y ago
- gjsman-1000 5y agoA. Not everyone you disagree with is a terrorist; B. Trump is very critical of the FBI (Steele dossier, Page & Strzok) and would be loathe to attach his name to something FBI-related; C. The FBI already did a honeypot for terrorists with the "ANOM Phone" running "ArcaneOS," which had hilarious psuedosecurity methods that actually convinced them.
- steele 5y agoA) No, but I disagree with every terrorist. B) Trump is critical of a lot of groups that believe him a useful idiot. C) cool story.
- charlieyu1 5y agoKinda surprising that Apple doesn’t cancel anything Trump related outright
- rosndo 5y agoWhy is it surprising?
- depaya 5y agoMight as well wait for the inevitably shady/illegal things to take place so it can be banned with reason.
- shadowgovt 5y agoIf the lack of outright a-priori cancellation of this app is surprising, that may be an opportunity for one to check one's premises underpinning assumptions.
- MisterSandman 5y agoWhy would Apple do that...? Their app store guidelines suck but they've never outright banned apps just on the basis of ideology.
- aaaaaaaaata 5y agoGrindr in China, Fortnite, tons of things depicting Pepe the Frog,
- whywhywhywhy 5y agoBanning it straight away or not allowing them on at all gives them more power, you just have to wait for them to skirt a rule and you can blame them for their own banning. I presume they've made the same mistake as that other one did, building on centralized infrastructure so they'll probably end up getting banned from AWS too.
- jmyeet 5y agoWhy would Apple do that? First, there's unlikely to be a big market for this (think Parler) so why would Apple involve itself on something that probably won't matter? Second, if there are any problems (eg security) or ToS/policy violations, Apple can't just assume those will happen. it has to be reactive. There is literally zero upside in taking preemptive action here.
- wyldfire 5y ago> Many users reported either having trouble registering for an account or were added to a waitlist with a message: "Due to massive demand, we have placed you on our waitlist." Seems like false scarcity. Or a beta test.
- vehemenz 5y agoAPI is barely responding, so I am pretty sure their servers are overloaded.
- MisterSandman 5y agoWhy, could be a genuine waitlist to prevent spam/overloading their servers?
- aaaaaaaaata 5y agoNobody ever looks at the incentives. What incentives could Apple possibly have for helping this firm?
- belltaco 5y agoHuh? Apple is not the one that's throttling and causing the error messages. Apple approved the app and provided app downloads to all the folks. Not sure what you're talking about.
- aaaaaaaaata 5y agoAh, shitty headline, and I was too cool to read this article. It sounded like the Apple App Store was wait-listing downloaders.
- brink 5y agoA Twitter without the thought police sounds nice.
- dgellow 5y agoQuite sure it will just be a different kind of thought police. Given their branding it seems designed to be an echo chamber of its own.
- SideburnsOfDoom 5y agoCould you give an example of the "thought police" on twitter?
- nindalf 5y agoThis poor guy was banned by the “thought police” - https://Twitter.com/realdonaldtrump https://Twitter.com/realdonaldtrump
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- verdverm 5y agoYou won't see the majority of it because setting a few examples means the many will not voice their true opinions.
- CodeGlitch 5y agoAnything related to the trans row will get you banned from Twitter. Obviously it's quite hard to give examples, as you know there not in Twitter anymore. This lady is quite famous in the UK and is banned from Twitter for her not so extreme views: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-45650462 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-45650462
- rsynnott 5y agoOh, honestly, don't be silly, Twitter is _full_ of bloody transphobes. That billboard wasn't taken down by twitter (it was probably taken down by the advertising agency, who generally prefer not to be involved in that sort of thing once it's pointed out to them). And the person in question _does_ appear to have an active twitter account?
- Someone1234 5y agoWhat is the business model? Regardless of your political opinions it is undeniable that advertising could associate you with some unpleasantness and while there are brands willing to do so, they have already seen business reputational damage by doing so. They could try charging users directly, but that has struggled historically (particularly for social networks wherein the network effect is a key success metric).
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- pessimizer 5y agoThey don't need a business model. A social network encouraging, networking, and promoting the people that agree with them is a goal, not just a means.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- ramesh31 5y ago
- zivkovicp 5y agoI don't think you need to have a business model if you can be sure of user growth and app downloads. In today's startup economy you can get almost unlimited funds as long as you can provide growth... the revenue can come later, it's not really a requirement for doing business.
- MisterSandman 5y agoThe business goal is to get Trump re-elected. Candidates since multiple multiple millions of dollars to build a narrative and build their image as the candidate of choice. Making a social media app is just the next logical conclusion.
- BitwiseFool 5y agoIt could be a loss leader. I strongly believe that Reddit's biggest value proposition is that the site can be used to shape public opinion. This is hard to directly monetize, but I sense that the content that makes its way to the frontpage is rife with manipulation. However, there is also a possibility that they are specifically looking for advertisers who are unabashedly conservative/on the right. I can easily see businesses branding themselves as the conservative alternative to [xyz]. A great example is MyPillow and Black Rifle Coffee. (Although B.R.C. has fallen out of favor lately).
- alignItems 5y agoIt’s a bit ironic that there’s a positive correlation between media that labels itself with “truth” in the name or title and misinformation.
- vikaveri 5y agoPravda
- jmyeet 5y agoIf you look at the official names for countries you notice some trends. One of them is that use of the words "People's" and "Democratic" in the country name tend to indicate a brutal dictatorship. Examples: - GDR: German Democratic Republic (ie East Germany). Totalitarian state. - PRC: People's Republic of China. Also autocratic. - DPRK: Democratic People's Republic of Korea (ie North Korea). This one is a two-fer and definitely a brutal dictatorship. With all that being said, I present to you "Truth Social".
- gjsman-1000 5y agoI also present to you CNN, "The Most Trusted Name In News."
- lghh 5y agoI'm not sure how this is correlated at all to what the person you're responding to said.
- aaaaaaaaata 5y agoYes you do.
- robertlagrant 5y agoI think it's because trust in CNN is evaporating.
- lghh 5y agoYou can't just respond to something unrelated and say "trust in CNN is evaporating" or whatever the parent comment was going. What does that have to do with Trump's new social media thing using the more dictatorial names for countries?
- robertlagrant 5y ago> What does that have to do with Trump's new social media thing using the more dictatorial names for countries? It's not this. It's that the names are ironic: - GDR: German Democratic Republic (ie East Germany). Totalitarian state. - PRC: People's Republic of China. Also autocratic. - DPRK: Democratic People's Republic of Korea (ie North Korea). This one is a two-fer and definitely a brutal dictatorship. - Truth Social And so the above poster's point was that this is also ironic: - CNN, "The Most Trusted Name In News."
- knodi 5y agoDisinformation labeled as “Truth”. What a joke.
- 4dregress 5y agoSocial Media has turned into one of humanities worst creations. I don't understand how any developer can work in that industry with a clear conscience. It is ethically and morally bankrupt. IMO you would be doing less damage to society if you worked in the Military Industrial Complex, at least you were being honest about what you're working on.
- jmyeet 5y agoThe only thing social media has done is allow people to do what they do at scale. Your issues with social media are simply complaints about people.
- 4dregress 5y agoNah, are you forgetting about all the examples of user manipulation? Cambridge Analytics, the Rohingya Genocide, the impact on young people / peoples mental health, body dysmorphia. There is a very long list! The worst thing about it is the people behind these platforms know exactly what their products are doing and they profit from it. The problem is it allows people/organizations "to do what people do at scale" with light or no consequences. And they make it very easy for people to do it and to get hooked on it.
- brodouevencode 5y agoI'm not so sure that's 100% true in the absence of social media. If it were there would be millions/billions of actual physical confrontations per day.
- hollerith 5y ago>Your issues with social media are simply complaints about people. That argument has the same flaw as the National Rifle Association's "Guns don't kill people, people kill people".
- q-big 5y ago> That argument has the same flaw as the National Rifle Association's "Guns don't kill people, people kill people". Guns don't kill people. I kill people. With guns. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xC03hmS1Brk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xC03hmS1Brk
- awb 5y agoDue to how polarizing the founding team is, it seems to me like this is a major attempt at a niche social network. Previously, the social network playbook has been to try to capture as much of the population as possible, but I’m sure that Trump knows a large chunk of the population will never support or join the platform.
- gjsman-1000 5y agoI think the polarization is also a feature, not a bug. Because once it is available, Trump likely believes a lot of these people will leave Twitter and Facebook. This will (in his view) result in a split market between Twitter (Left) and Truth Social (Right). No doubt both sides will view the other as deluded, but at least there (hopefully) won't be as many flame wars.
- awb 5y agoA flame war and an echo chamber are two sides of the same coin IMO. Also, power seems to fracture almost indefinitely. Trump went after fellow Republicans. I’m sure there will be similar fights to become the voice du jour of Truth Social.
- CSMastermind 5y agoI'm pretty skeptical of their ability to build a functioning social network, purely from a technical perspective. It's a complicated problem to solve at any meaningful degree of scale. With that said I think some people here might be too quick to dismiss the market opportunity a new social network could take advantage of. You'll frequently see messages here about how terrible Reddit has gotten, in part because of heavy-handed moderation. A new social media that says, "we're not removing anything unless it's clearly illegal or we get a court order to do so" is a reasonable pitch in my mind. Again, I doubt this particular app will succeed but I also wouldn't be surprised if the demand was real.
- ramesh31 5y ago>A new social media that says, "we're not removing anything unless it's clearly illegal or we get a court order to do so" is a reasonable pitch in my mind. And then they will face the same market forces as Facebook and Reddit, and be forced to either capitulate or remain a tiny niche. Which may sound fine to a programmer, but anyone investing serious money into this will force their hand. And then the cycle repeats.
- gjsman-1000 5y agoI don't understand why anyone investing money would be a serious issue. Trump has enough money to keep it going until he can get ad revenue or subscriptions, so I don't see why he would need to sell it or capitulate to market forces unless he wanted to. I would have a hard time believing that Trump is not approaching it as a business.
- ramesh31 5y ago>I would have a hard time believing that Trump is not approaching it as a business. I also have a hard time believing he would invest a single a penny of his own money into this. He's a repulsive human being, but he's not an idiot. And his investors will be calling the shots.
- 5y ago
- CodeGlitch 5y agoAre you serious HN? Why the heck has this been flagged?
- JohnTHaller 5y ago'free speech'... "PROHIBITED ACTIVITIES... disparage, tarnish, or otherwise harm, in our opinion, us and/or the Site." - TRUTH Social TERMS OF SERVICE 7.12
- long_time_gone 5y agoAlmost like the same people who are working to ban books across the country aren't all that into Free Speech.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- krapp 5y agoIt's just terrible, seeing how oppressed Trump and his cohort are... crushed into silence under the iron jackboot of cancel culture and the globalist deep state Marxist media conspiracy that controls thought and communication for most of humanity, made pariahs by the progressive hate-mobs, unable to participate in society because of their political views. Sad. Sad!