Saturday marks the two week anniversary of me logging into Truth Social for the first time.
Overly excited to be in the beta, and testing out a new social media platform, I didn’t really know what to expect once I jumped in.
The timing couldn’t have been better. Because once again my big mouth got me into a spot of trouble… and I acquired a 12 hour ban from the overlords at Twitter.
I guess not everyone thinks that Lieutenant Colonel Vindman and his wife should be begging for money with a tin cup to pay the sorts of lawyers fees that Trump administration officials have been racking up over the last five years.
At a minimum.
But I digress.
Anyway, besides the talk that embarrasses my family periodically, I’m one of those crazy people that’s pretty much a free speech absolutist. If you couldn’t tell.
Just as it’s my right to say that people should be hung for sedition, you have the right to say that you’d like to see the entire Trump family in jail.
And I will defend your right to say it. On a good day I might actually sit down to argue the points with you.
We all have the right to speak our minds. Well at least we did.
I joined Twitter in the early days. When it was brand new and claimed to be the place where free-speech happened.
It’s the place where I had a Twitter exchange with Senator Fred Thompson. When I was sitting in the parking lot of a Costco in Merced. (Followed by a complete freak out that THAT ACTUALLY HAPPENED to ME)
That Twitter doesn’t exist anymore.
It’s the place that has now become a digital totalitarian dystopia the likes of which Orwell imagined, and tried to warn us about.
I’m more than a little disillusioned.
And I’ve come to the point where I’m more than tired of censoring my own thoughts to be able to post them on a website.
Over the last few months, this helped break my Twitter addiction. And I mostly logged in to be able to chat with people that I had met over the years.
I can’t convey to people how ridiculous it had all become, unless you were someone who was extremely online, and plugged into political Twitter. It became filled with PR bots, troll accounts, and digital trickery. And that’s before we got to the censorship.
Most of it amounted to a pipeline of propaganda, both Democrat and Republican, meant to feed emotions and spike outrage.
It became a huge social behavior modification tool. And I’d wager not for the betterment of humanity.
Enter Truth Social.
It promises no political censorship… so I figured I might as well jump in with both feet composing my first Truth.
Might as well poke the bird while I was at it.
And it got a reaction that’s right up there with my Senator Thompson interaction and meeting Wonder Woman on my list of personal cool happenings.
That’s a heck of a welcome from the former Congressman and CEO of Truth Social.
And some words to live up to.
I’d say there’s over 1 million people right now, a good many of them previously banned from other platforms with no voice, that are willing to hold the congressman to that freedom… the waitlist might have grown since the last time I checked.
Not everything goes on TruthSocial, right now content filters help make the censors at the Apple store mollified, and there are things that can get you banned (illegal activity being one of them).
A simple click through solves the content warnings. Developers, active on the app and interacting with users, have said that content settings will be something the users can decide for themselves in future updates.
I’m happy that it’s been stable and easy to use, and after two updates moving faster. Glitches, once reported to support, get attention right away. And I’m more than impressed that Truth Social hasn’t been down once as they’ve onboarded users to the platform.
It’s a social media app that quite simply… is what you make it. And contrary to reporting in the mainstream media, a place of discussion, engagement and sharing that is growing every day.
It’s the first Twitter alternative platform that I trusted enough to delete the Twitter app from my phone, and actually use. It might actually get me to delete Facebook too.
Trust is kind of a big thing these days, since there’s so little of it surrounding the politics of our daily lives.
Right now Truth Social is flooded with political news and posts. But every day, people login and share what they love, beyond politics or President Trump.
Accounts that highlight pets, travel, art and aesthetics, geography, food, photography, gaming and more are popping up every day.
And as more users are tracked in, the array of voices, interests and opinions you see on the app grows.
It’s honestly been a breath of fresh air. And more than a reminder of the Wild West where pretty much anything goes.
I’m afraid that I kicked one social media addiction to discover another.
I haven’t paid much attention to the few trolls that have shown up in my timeline. Knowing that you’re not gonna be banned for disagreement and hurt feelings is definitely freeing in that respect.
I didn’t even mind the misgendering (Although the intellectual quality of trolls has slipped mightily over the last five years.)
I look forward to watching Truth Social improve as time goes on.
To the growth that can come when liberties are unchained and allowed to flourish. From the grassroots. With protection from those tasked to guard it.
I look forward to the bells and whistles… Like re-truths with comments, the engine of Snark that propelled Twitter to where it is now, threads and Direct Messages.
Android and desktop users will have to wait until later in the year to start their Truth Social experience. I understand the standpoint of working out all the bugs on one platform at a time, and keeping the beta limited to ensure stability over the long term.
Smart strategy from both a testing and marketing standpoint.
But what it already has, a 500 character limit, photo and video uploads, news sharing… and freedom to speak… even to a former Congressman...
Well that’s a win where I sit.