Former President Donald Trump has often accused social media companies of censoring him, so he's responded by launching a social media platform of his own.
The new platform, Truth Social, promises "open, free, and honest global conversation without discriminating against political ideology." It is part of the new Trump Media Technology Group (TMTG).
In a statement, Trump made clear that the new social media platform would, in his eyes, serve as the antithesis to "Big Tech":
"I created TRUTH Social and TMTG to stand up against the tyranny of Big Tech."
"We live in a world where the Taliban has a huge presence on Twitter, yet your favorite American President has been silenced."
There's a catch to Truth Social, however: You can't actually make fun of it.
Truth Social's terms of service include a clause stating that users may not "disparage, tarnish, or otherwise harm, in our opinion, us and/or the Site."
Naturally, this little fact did not go unnoticed by the former President's critics, and they were quick to highlight his hypocrisy
Truth Social was barely online before it fell victim to hackers, as reported by The Washington Post:
"Former president Donald Trump and his team declared Wednesday night that they would soon launch a media powerhouse" that would help them triumph in their long-running war against Big Tech."
"But within hours, pranksters found what appeared to be an unreleased test version and posted a picture of a defecating pig to the "donaldjtrump" account."
The site has since been pulled offline.
Trump has often accused Twitter of limiting prominent conservative voices on its platform.
In 2018, while still in office, he claimed that Twitter is "SHADOW BANNING prominent Republicans" in response to a news story that alleged accounts owned by Republicans were showing up in a general search of the website but not automatically populating when typing their names in the drop-down bar.
Twitter later issued a response, attributing the issue to a platform bug.
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