The TOS for TRUTH Social shows it bans “excessive use of capital letters”, reserves the right to ban users, and hopes to benefit from Section 230 protections

very truthy: TRUTH Social | Truth Social https://truthsocial.com/ Tom Coates / @tomcoates : Watching the ‘Truth social’ conversation. Looks like it's a Mastodon instance which should make scaling interesting. Also if it doesn't have moderation and is all about free speech it'll get banned from the App Store in about twenty minutes.

Washington Post 2021-10-22 Drew Harwell

Context & Ripple Effects

TRUTH Social launched with written limits on user behavior and discretionary enforcement even as its terms sought Section 230 protections. That makes governance policy—not simply a free-speech posture—a central operating choice from the outset.

The launch also drew a Mastodon licensing complaint, while later coverage documented inconsistent moderation decisions. Together, those developments put both the platform's technical base and its enforcement credibility under scrutiny.

First-order effects

TRUTH Social users face explicit posting limits and the prospect of account bans, giving the service a formal basis to remove content or participants.
TRUTH Social positions itself to claim Section 230 protections while retaining control over moderation decisions under its own terms.

Second-order effects

Gettr and Parler, already competing for the same prospective users, cannot rely on TRUTH Social being wholly unmoderated as a point of differentiation.
The Mastodon licensing dispute puts pressure on TRUTH Social to reconcile its underlying software use with the obligations attached to that codebase.

Third-order effects

If alternative social platforms retain broad removal rights while seeking intermediary protections, their competitive divide will hinge less on whether they moderate than on how consistently they apply rules.
The combination of software-license compliance and visible enforcement disputes makes governance an operational constraint for politically branded platforms, not merely a messaging choice.

The trend: Alternative social networks are converging on formal platform governance even when their market positioning emphasizes freer speech.

Discussion

@drewharwell Drew Harwell on x
Other TRUTH Social weird stuff: * Its App Store listing has lots of official logos & fake posts from companies like Chevy, which tells me they have “no affiliation” with the site * It can ban you for posting too many capital letters. Damn cancel culture https://www.washingtonpost…
@jkosseff Jeff Kosseff on x
The Truth Social Oversight Board will be amazing.
@jonchevreau Jonathan Chevreau on x
Pranksters have already defaced Trump's new social network (and talk about Hutzpah when a pathological liar incorporates the word Truth in his service. Both Truth and Trump begin with the letters TRU, but there the similarity ends.) https://www.washingtonpost.com/ ...
@ian_fraser Ian Fraser on x
The unholy mess inside Donald Trump's social-media network, #TruthSocial. It's already been hijacked by pranksters, it bans criticism of itself, and it adopts the very policies that Trump has slammed “Big Tech” for. https://www.washingtonpost.com/ ...
@danpfeiffer Dan Pfeiffer on x
The utter absurdity of this aside, I still find it very funny that Facebook spent four years breaking their own rules to appease Trump and his response is to launch a Facebook competitor https://twitter.com/...
@heatherkelly Heather Kelly on x
Find someone who loves you as much as Drew loves taking apart a day-old Trump social network held together with bubble gum and Photoshop. https://twitter.com/...
@karaswisher Kara Swisher on x
Love the attack on Big Tech WHILE using the Apple App Store — very truthy: TRUTH Social | Truth Social https://truthsocial.com/
@tomcoates Tom Coates on x
Watching the ‘Truth social’ conversation. Looks like it's a Mastodon instance which should make scaling interesting. Also if it doesn't have moderation and is all about free speech it'll get banned from the App Store in about twenty minutes.
@reallizusa Liz Harrington on x
🚨President Donald J. Trump Announces Trump Media & Technology Group🚨 “I created TRUTH Social and TMTG to stand up to the tyranny of Big Tech... I am excited to send out my first TRUTH on TRUTH Social very soon...” https://twitter.com/...
@bradheath Brad Heath on x
The twenty-third rule for Trump's planned social media site is that you can't use it to make fun of his new social media site. https://twitter.com/...
@kim @kim on x
Trump is launching TRUTH social network to compete with Facebook which is being renamed CONSEQUENCES.
@jack Jack⚡️ on x
i guess @jack is taken https://twitter.com/...
@santucci John Santucci on x
This press release reporters are getting is legit - confirmed to me by sources close to former President Trump. He is launching a media company with a social media platform called “TRUTH Social”. https://twitter.com/...
@yunli626 Yun Li on x
$DWAC, the SPAC to merge with Trump's social media platform, skyrocketed on extremely heavy trading volume Thursday. -closed up 356.8% at $35.54 per share -more than 475 million shares changed hands -trading was halted multiple times due to volatility https://www.cnbc.com/...
@aricohn Ari Cohn on x
Huh, it sure seems like the Section 230 truthers really don't like putting their money where their mouth is. https://twitter.com/...
@rob_sheridan Rob Scare-Idan on x
Hard to imagine a more hilariously pitch-perfect example of what the right really means when they whine about “free speech” https://twitter.com/...
@dpakman David Pakman on x
Wait, so Trump's heroic new free speech platform, meant to defeat censorship and limits on speech, will ban you if you say something mean about the website? https://twitter.com/...
@mattyglesias Matthew Yglesias on x
A new Trump media venture will allow users to break free of the death-grip woke leftists like Ben Shapiro and Dan Bongino have on the big tech platforms. https://twitter.com/...
@drewharwell Drew Harwell on x
New: Our full story on the early mess inside Trump's social network, TRUTH Social, which pranksters already defaced. The site bans criticism of itself, clings to Section 230 and adopts many other measures Trump has criticized Big Tech for: https://www.washingtonpost.com/ ...
@lachlan Lachlan Markay on x
The terms of service for Trump's new social media site contain a non-disparagement clause https://twitter.com/...
@pkafka Peter Kafka on x
The Trump SPAC was inevitable. Almost weird it didn't happen sooner. “It does feel a little bit like all of recent financial history has been leading up to this moment?” @matt_levine of course. https://urldefense.proof-point.com/ ... https://twitter.com/...
@lordravenscraft Eric Ravenscraft on x
back when i was still in church, they made a huge deal about making a “christian” version of everything, because they could profit off the things that were popular by selling a slightly worse version to people who were a little too sensitive to just buy the popular thing itself h…
@acyn @acyn on x
Fox already promoting Trump's new blog https://twitter.com/...
@drewharwell Drew Harwell on x
Anyone can create an account on Trump's social network TRUTH Social using a publicly available link. I literally just registered “mikepence.” The site hasn't even launched yet and it's already this vulnerable https://twitter.com/...
@mmasnick Mike Masnick on x
One thing to note, re: Truth Social's Terms of Service. You are not allowed to disparage Truth Social or its employees, but can disparage others. Which would violate the laws proposed by a bunch of Trumpist elected officials that forbid “unequal” treatment of social media users. …
@willoremus Will Oremus on x
i only got 5 hours of non-woke last night. needed a third cup of coffee this am https://twitter.com/...
@alexstamos Alex Stamos on x
Apple App Store policy team. https://twitter.com/...
@drewharwell Drew Harwell on x
On Trump's new social network, TRUTH Social, you can post TRUTHs, which are like tweets, or Re-TRUTHs, which are retweets. There's also a TRUTH Feed and notifications so you can know who's interacting with your TRUTH's https://twitter.com/...
@mikeelgan Mike Elgan on x
Question of the moment: “Where's Qanon on this?” https://twitter.com/...
@drewharwell Drew Harwell on x
@Fahrenthold But wait, there's more. Trump's social network shut down the other test site, but smart people on the Internet ran a search of its favicon and found another test domain, which I was just able to create a fake account for. This security is ... not great! https://www.w…
@newsweek @newsweek on x
The founder of Mastodon said it appears Truth Social is “absolutely is based on” his open-source social networking platform. https://www.newsweek.com/...
@drewharwell Drew Harwell on x
And here's @MikaelThalen aka TRUTH Social user donaldtrump: https://twitter.com/...
@iamgryphoneer Ghoulphoneer on x
LMAOOO. trump's twitter clone is dead in the water. it used mastodon without making the site's code open-source, which is a violation of the license. mastodon's creator is calling lawyers. even if it won't get expensive for trump, this should remove “truth social” from appstores.…
@drewharwell Drew Harwell on x
More news: The founder of Mastodon, the open-source software Trump's site is built on, says it may be in violation of rules. He's contacted legal counsel. They couldn't take the site down, but “avenues to take action still exist through legal proceedings” https://www.washingtonpo…
@xor Parker Higgins on x
gotta say: lmao https://www.vice.com/... https://twitter.com/...

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