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When is Elon Musk signed an agreement Buying Twitter, another social networking product, for $44 billion this week rose to number 1 On Apple’s App Store: Real SocialThe flagship app of former President Donald J. Trump’s fledgling social media company.

The increased interest in Truth Social, which was launched in February, was driven by a recent technology upgrade of the app that allowed a large number of users to participate in it. At the same time, there is more uncertainty about Twitter. Some Twitter users disabled their accounts this week after news emerged that Musk had purchased the site and questions arose about how he could change the platform.

Truth Social has long positioned itself as an alternative to Twitter and Facebook, both of which have banned Mr Trump from their sites. January 6 rebellion He was at the US Capitol last year. The app marketed itself as an uncensored platform that would not discriminate against users because of their political beliefs. He and other apps like Rumble and Parler take a practical approach to moderation so that, in theory, people can chat freely without being banned.

(Mr Musk’s purchase of Twitter stirs speculation that Mr Trump’s account will be reinstated, while the former president said won’t rejoin twitter and would continue to use Truth Social instead.)

Twitter did not immediately respond to a request for comment regarding people who disabled their accounts following Mr. Musk’s settlement.

I decided to dig into this stew by testing Truth Social. Despite its deception, the app has had a troubling debut. When it launched in February, many people who signed up were faced with a static screen displaying a waitlist number that the site described as “huge demand.”

I was on the waiting list at 412,553. Then on Saturday I was suddenly let in. I entered my phone number to complete the registration process and jumped with interest.

Evaluating a social media app – especially one that’s so young – isn’t simple, especially when you’re trying to see how much free speech it really allows. The application checks some posts. But because it doesn’t have a set of community guidelines, it’s not clear what triggers content decisions. Some posts banned on Twitter were found on Truth Social, while some posts were hidden due to profanity.

To say that I am inadequate would be an understatement. After waiting two months to join the app, Truth Social seemed unfinished and the crowd was feeling weak. Here’s what I found.

A Rocky Start

After choosing a username and avatar (I uploaded a picture of my Labrador), I started my Truth Social experience. The app looked like a clone of Twitter. Truth Social has a main news feed, a search tool, a messaging system, and a button to create a “Truth” equivalent to a tweet.

Truth Social promptly suggested a list of several dozen accounts to follow, including Fox News, The Epoch Times, and of course Mr Trump himself. The former president only published one Fact, and that was in February: “Get Ready! Your favorite President will see you soon!” It has reached 1.88 million followers to date.

After following all 80 accounts suggested by the app, no new suggestions appeared, so I manually searched for accounts to follow. Many accounts of big brands have already been taken over by fraudsters. The @nytimes profile was tagged “The Failing NY Times” and @CNN was named “CNN (Parody)”. Another suspicious-looking account claiming to be ABC News had only posted it three times.

My timeline consisted mostly of news articles and videos. I saw a Newsmax story about Washington State banning the use of the word “marijuana” and a clip mocking liberal Twitter staffers who were upset about the takeover by Mr Musk.

Most of the app is broken. Trying to do a keyword search for a Truth was useless. Searching for the words “vaccine” and “Covid” brought up the message “No Matching Truth found”.

Trump Media and Technology Group, the company founded by Mr Trump to develop Truth Social, did not respond to requests for comment.

Inconsistent Censorship

Overall, there wasn’t enough activity at Truth Social to get a strong sense of whether content moderation policies are any looser than those of mainstream social media. Like Twitter and Facebook, Truth Social has a terms of service that states that illegal activities are not allowed in the app.

In some cases, the app looked stricter than Twitter. While Twitter allows some pornographic content, Truth Social completely prohibits sexual content and language as per their terms of service. On some posts containing the F-word with the hashtag, Truth Social hid the content and issued a warning about sensitive content. (Tapping “Show Content” revealed the hashtag.)

To test the app’s claims about political ideology, I ran a New York Times Opinionated Truth article criticizing the Republican Party and other posts with news articles about the January 6 riot and how Real Social’s prospects could be damaged by Mr. . Musk’s takeover of Twitter. None of the posts are marked as problematic. This showed that the app did not discriminate based on politics, just as it said it would not.

I also found some accounts that are not allowed to be posted on Twitter – The Babylon Bee, the suspended right-wing satire site Transgender Biden posts regularly on Truth Social to misgender her management official. It was another sign that the app was less restrictive than Twitter.

But the idea that Truth Social could be an uncensored social network was ultimately overwhelming, said Nathaniel Persily, a professor at Stanford Law School. In reality, social networking sites are not really the public squares of the internet, he said; They are user communities that need to feel safe and commercial products that need to comply with the law.

“A platform without rules is rapidly descending into child pornography and Nazism,” he said.

Brianna Wu, a video game developer, said policies are needed to keep social networks a safe place for people to communicate.

Ms. Wu worked with Twitter to develop their safety guidelines. game gate, a 2014 internet campaign to troll critics of the male-dominated gaming industry. He said his conversations with Twitter focused on ways to reduce the harm of harassment, resulting in a filter Twitter had developed to silence bots that automatically post insults about individuals.

“It’s about being able to have a healthy conversation,” she said.

it’s all something Mr. Musk will face When you take control of Twitter. While Mr. Musk was vague about his plans to reshape the social network, he made it clear in his deal announcement that freedom of expression is “a cornerstone of a functioning democracy.”