Former President Donald Trump on Wednesday announced that he will launch a new media company and social network that was quickly hacked by pranksters, The Washington Post reports.
Trump in a statement announced a new media company called the Trump Media & Technology Group, which is expected to include a streaming network and a social media company called “TRUTH Social.” The company, the statement said, will “create a rival to the liberal media consortium and fight back against the ‘Big Tech’ companies of Silicon Valley.”
The statement said that Trump is partnering with a SPAC, or special purpose acquisition company, called Digital World Acquisition, which can sell shares to the public. Digital World was incorporated in Florida a month after Trump’s election loss and filed an IPO this spring. The IPO raised about $283 million.
“I created TRUTH Social and TMTG to stand up to the tyranny of Big Tech,” Trump said in a statement. “We live in a world where the Taliban has a huge presence on Twitter, yet your favorite American President has been silenced. This is unacceptable. I am excited to send out my first TRUTH on TRUTH Social very soon.”
The statement said the social network will be rolled out in 2022 with a beta launch in November.
Criticism banned:
Though TRUTH Social is not yet live, the network’s terms and conditions already include numerous prohibited activities, including criticizing the app.
Users are banned from seeking to “disparage, tarnish, or otherwise harm, in our opinion, us and/or the Site.”
The terms also ban compiling posts without permission from the site, advertising goods or services, and harassment.
Immediately hacked:
Hackers quickly gained access to what appears to be an unreleased test version of the site and created a “donaldjtrump” account that subsequently published a photo of a defecating pig.
The test site has since been taken offline.
A Washington Post reporter was similarly able to create an account with the name “mikepence” before sign-ups were shut down.
