Trump's Truth Social app launched Monday. It immediately crashed for 13 hours.
Announcements claiming that former President Donald Trump's new social media app, Truth Social, would be available for download on Monday proved to be technically true but did not facilitate much socializing, The Washington Post reported Tuesday.
Per the Post, Truth Social "has been almost entirely inaccessible in the first days of its grand debut because of technical glitches, a 13-hour outage, and a 300,000-person waitlist."
Just after 5 p.m. ET on Tuesday, the waitlist appeared to be 476,784 names long.
The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
The app itself looks very similar to Twitter, except the verification checkmarks are red, tweets and retweets are called "truths" and "retruths," and Trump isn't banned.
Developers said they had "stabilized the account creation process," putting an end to the long outage but not to the waitlist, according to the Post.
Despite Trump's frequent condemnations of Big Tech social media censorship and Section 230, the law which enables platforms to choose the content they host, his new social network relies heavily on both content moderation and Section 230. Devin Nunes, a former Republican congressman who oversees Truth Social as CEO of the Trump Media and Technology Group, says the site will maintain a "family friendly" environment overseen by the same auto-moderation company used by Facebook and Twitter.
TMTG plans to go public following a merger with special purpose acquisition company Digital World Acquisition Corp. The merger is under SEC investigation.
A free daily email with the biggest news stories of the day – and the best features from TheWeek.com
Grayson Quay was the weekend editor at TheWeek.com. His writing has also been published in National Review, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Modern Age, The American Conservative, The Spectator World, and other outlets. Grayson earned his M.A. from Georgetown University in 2019.
-
Political cartoons for December 7Cartoons Sunday’s political cartoons include the Trump-tanic, AI Santa, and the search for a moderate Republican
-
Trump’s poll collapse: can he stop the slide?Talking Point President who promised to ease cost-of-living has found that US economic woes can’t be solved ‘via executive fiat’
-
Sudoku hard: December 7, 2025The daily hard sudoku puzzle from The Week
-
Trump’s poll collapse: can he stop the slide?Talking Point President who promised to ease cost-of-living has found that US economic woes can’t be solved ‘via executive fiat’
-
‘These accounts clearly are designed as a capitalist alternative’Instant Opinion Opinion, comment and editorials of the day
-
Trump tightens restrictions for work visasSpeed Read The length of work permits for asylum seekers and refugees has been shortened from five years to 18 months
-
Supreme Court revives Texas GOP gerrymanderSpeed Read Texas Republicans can use the congressional map they approved in August at President Donald Trump’s behest
-
Boat strike footage rattles some lawmakersSpeed Read ‘Disturbing’ footage of the Sept. 2 attack on an alleged drug-trafficking boat also shows the second strike that killed two survivors who were clinging to the wreckage
-
Is a Putin-Modi love-in a worry for the West?Today’s Big Question The Indian leader is walking a ‘tightrope’ between Russia and the United States
-
Trump boosts gas cars in fuel economy rollbackspeed read Watering down fuel efficiency standards is another blow to former President Biden’s effort to boost electric vehicles
-
Hegseth’s Signal chat put troops in peril, probe findsSpeed Read The defense secretary risked the lives of military personnel and violated Pentagon rules, says new report
