纽约-前总统唐纳德·特朗普他希望这款社交媒体应用能与周一发布的Twitter相抗衡。一年前，他被禁止使用Twitter、脸书和YouTube，现在他正寻求一个新的数字平台来团结他的支持者，并与言论方面的重大技术限制作斗争。
他的Truth社交应用可以从苹果应用商店下载，并提供给数量有限的预订用户。其他被列入等候名单的人将在未来10天内获准进入。
该网站在上线后不久就遇到了技术故障，有报道称用户被关闭了数小时。其他人在注册时遇到了困难。该网站预计在下个月之前不会对任何想下载它的人开放。
“由于大量的需求，我们已经把你放在我们的等待名单上，”一条消息读给一些试图访问该平台的人，并补充说，“我们爱你。”
特朗普希望Truth Social能够吸引数百万在Twitter上关注他的人，因为他暗示将进行第三次总统竞选，从而引发其他订阅者的浪潮，以证明投资者在该项目上投入的数十亿美元是合理的。一家计划收购Truth Social母公司Trump Media and Technology Group的公司的股价最近几个月飙升。
根据苹果的排名，周一早上，Truth Social是美国第一大免费应用，击败了“会说话的狗本”儿童游戏、流媒体服务HBO Max、抖音、YouTube、Instagram和脸书。
周一的部分发射是继上周测试平台的试验性“测试版”发射之后。
特朗普在去年1月6日国会大厦骚乱后被禁止出现在顶级社交媒体平台上，批评者指责他煽动了这场骚乱。这项禁令引发了关于由几家科技巨头主导的社交媒体行业言论自由的困难问题——特朗普和保守媒体抓住了这个问题。
共和党人迅速利用Truth Social的推出为他们的选举努力筹集资金。
“在被自由派科技巨头特朗普钳制了一年多之后。信息系统。共和党众议院少数党领袖凯文·麦卡锡在周一的筹款电子邮件呼吁中写道。
像共和党全国委员会和国会领导基金这样的团体也一直在筹集资金。
“我们的主要目标是让人们重获发言权，”川普媒体首席执行官、前共和党众议员德文·努内斯周日在福克斯新闻频道表示。他补充说，该应用程序提供了“与一些硅谷技术寡头怪胎相反的东西，告诉人们他们想想什么，并决定谁可以或不可以在平台上。”
Nunes表示，该应用程序应在3月底前“全面投入使用”。
尽管声势浩大，但特朗普似乎在发布当天基本上没有使用这款应用。他的真实社交账户截图显示，截至东部时间下午4点，没有新消息。他的最后一条信息来自一周前:“准备好!你最喜欢的总统马上就要见你了!”
在去年推特永久禁止他发布之前，特朗普已经发了近6万条推特，吸引了近9000万粉丝。
周一，他的“真相”社交关注者有12000人。
特朗普希望利用对社交媒体禁令的愤怒来吸引广大观众，以保持股票上涨——并可能亲自给他数亿美元——但他面临重大挑战。
已经向公众开放的替代消息平台，如Gettr和Parler，都无法超越保守派政治评论的回音室。
特朗普的公司Trump Media也面临财务障碍。一家计划与其合并的上市公司已承诺向其提供近3亿美元，数十家私人投资者也承诺为其运营提供额外10亿美元的资金，但在获得现金之前，该公司仍需获得监管机构的批准。
它希望与之合并的公司Digital World Acquisition Corp .表示，监管机构正在调查有关该公司去年可能违反安全规则的报道，该公司在向公众出售股票之前与特朗普代表谈论了可能的合作。数字世界是一家所谓的空白支票公司，如果它还没有确定收购目标，它只能快速上市，无需披露太多信息。
另一项监管调查的重点是秋季早些时候可能存在的股票交易违规行为。
数字世界的股票投资者对其最终合并目标特朗普媒体的估值为100亿美元。
Trump's social media app launches year after Twitter ban
NEW YORK -- Former PresidentDonald Trump's social media app that he hopes will rival Twitter launched Monday as he seeks a new digital stage to rally his supporters and fight Big Tech limits on speech, a year after he was banned from Twitter, Facebook and YouTube.
His Truth Social app was offered for download from the Apple App Store to a limited number of subscribers who had preordered. Others who were added to a waiting list are to be given access over the next 10 days.
The site encountered technical glitches shortly after launch, with reports that subscribers were shut out for hours. Others had trouble signing on. The site is not expected to be open to anyone who wants to download it until next month.
“Due to massive demand, we have placed you on our waitlist,” read a message to some of those trying to access the platform, adding, “We love you.”
Trump is hoping Truth Social will attract the millions who followed him on Twitter as he hints at a third presidential run, triggering a wave of other subscribers to justify the billions of dollars that investors have bet on the venture. Shares in a company that plans to buy Trump Media and Technology Group, the parent of Truth Social, have soared in recent months.
According to Apple’s rankings, Truth Social was the top free app in the U.S. on Monday morning, besting the “Talking Ben the Dog” children’s game, streaming service HBO Max, TikTok, YouTube, Instagram and Facebook.
The partial launch Monday follows an experimental “beta” launch to test the platform last week.
Trump was banned from top social media platforms following the Jan. 6 Capitol riot last year that critics accused him of inciting. The ban has raised difficult questions about free speech in a social media industry dominated by a few tech giants — an issue that Trump and conservative media have seized upon.
Republicans were quick to use the launch of Truth Social to raise money for their election efforts.
“After over A YEAR of muzzling by the Liberal Big Tech Tyrants: TRUMP. IS. BACK,” wrote GOP House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy in a fundraising email appeal Monday.
Groups like the Republican National Committee and the Congressional Leadership Fund also have been fundraising off the launch.
“Our main goal here is to give people their voice back," Trump Media CEO and former GOP Congressman Devin Nunes said Sunday on Fox News. He added that the app offers "the opposite of some Silicon Valley tech oligarch freak telling people what they want to think and deciding who can or cannot be on the platform.”
Nunes said the app should be “fully operational” by the end of March.
For all the fanfare, Trump appears to have largely stayed away from the app on launch day. A screenshot taken of his Truth Social account showed no new messages as of 4 p.m. Eastern. His last message was from a week earlier: “Get Ready! Your favorite President will see you soon!"
Before Twitter permanently barred him from posting last year, Trump had tweeted nearly 60,000 times and had attracted almost 90 million followers.
His Truth Social followers on Monday were listed at 12,000.
Trump is hoping to tap into outrage over the social media bans to attract a broad audience to keep the stock rising — and possibly hand him hundreds of millions of dollars personally — but he faces significant challenges.
None of alternative messaging platforms already open to public, such as Gettr and Parler, have been able to move beyond an echo chamber of conservative political commentary.
Trump's company, Trump Media, also faces financial hurdles. It has been promised nearly $300 million from a publicly traded company that plans to merge with it and got pledges from dozens of private investors for an additional $1 billion to fund its operations, but it still needs approval from regulators for the deal before it can access the cash.
The company it hopes to merge with, Digital World Acquisition Corp., has said regulators are investigating following reports that it may have broken security rules last year by talking to Trump representatives about possibly joining forces before selling stock to the public. Digital World is a so-called blank-check company that is only allowed a quick path to going public without many disclosures if it has not identified a target to buy yet.
Another regulatory investigation is focused on possible stock trading violations earlier in the fall.
Investors in shares of Digital World are valuing its eventual merger target, Trump Media, at $10 billion.
———
