Donald Trump's Social Media Platform Is In The Trial Stage, Not Yet Accessible From Indonesia

Donald Trump while still serving as US President in the White House. (photo: twitter @potus45)

JAKARTA - Details about former US President Donald Trump's new social media app are starting to spread. According to a leak received by Reuters, about 500 beta testers of the app have now started using the initial version of "Truth Social."

The Truth Social test comes a year after Trump was banned from Alphabet Inc's Facebook, Twitter and YouTube social media platforms.

Its new media and technology venture, Trump Media & Technology Group (TMTG), has also pledged to provide an "exciting and censorship-free experience" on the app, which Chief Executive Devin Nunes says will launch in late March.

However, TMTG remains shrouded in secrecy and is considered skeptical by some technology and media circles. It's still unclear whether the app's free-of-expression goals can co-exist with Apple and Google's app store policies. TMTG was not immediately available for comment on the matter.

Liz Willis, correspondent and vice president of operations at Right Side Broadcasting Network, told Reuters she received an email last Tuesday stating that "T Media Tech LLC has invited you to test Truth Social."

Willis was able to download apps on his iPhone through the beta testing site TestFlight, an Apple-owned product that developers use before officially launching their apps on the App Store. “Users have been posting this version of Truth Social for the past 24 hours,” Willis said.

Wayne Dupree, founder of WayneDupree.com and host of a conservative podcast, was also one of the beta testers of Trump's app.

"I can see my participation in Truth Social goes beyond Twitter because I don't seem to have been pressured like I was on Twitter, since 2016," said Dupree, who added there is currently no edit button for the app.

"I wanted to share a chronicle of my single dad. I wanted my followers to see me more than politics and I felt Truth Social would allow my audience to see me as Twitter."

Twitter itself has repeatedly denied that its platform is politically biased. Although in Indonesia, they had suspended the @wadas_melawan account, for no apparent reason and finally revived it without providing a detailed explanation of the cause.

As of Wednesday evening, Trump's account on Truth Social already had 317 followers, according to a screenshot seen by Reuters. On the Twitter platform, Trump previously had 88 million followers before being suspended.

Truth Social allows users to post and share the "truth" in the same way they do with tweets. In fact, according to Willis, there are no ads on the platform.

Users get to choose who they follow and the feed is a mix of individual posts and news feeds like RSS. They'll get a notification if someone mentions or starts following them.

According to the screenshot, the app says that “A new direct messaging experience will be available soon. Please stay here.” It's just a shame that when accessed from Indonesia, the message that appears on the site is "Error 1020 Access Denied", which means it still can't be opened or the user is blocked.

According to a screenshot from Reuters, several conservative media figures also have this account. But these people have not confirmed if it is their account.

Trump's account shows one "truth" he posted three days ago, verified on his @realDonaldTrump account with a red tick and with the message: "Get ready! Your favorite president is coming to see you soon!"

Donald Trump Jr on Twitter also immediately highlighted his father's first post on Truth Social.

TMTG released the latest version, "Truth Social 0.9," Wednesday morning. It is currently testing bug fixes for "re-truth," called retweets, "image aspect ratio and compression, improved error handling, and account creation."

On Wednesday morning Nunes, who joined the application in February. 10, posted: “Good morning Truth testers. Please screenshot any bugs when screenshot preview appears.”

If testers see something they don't like, they can take a screenshot and report it to the developer.