Hello, Patriots! So, I’ve been on TRUTH Social for about 2 days now and I can share some of my thoughts about this new platform. There are a few pros and a few cons, and I also included some nice screenshots of the app. I also included info about a tip at the end to help you increase your followers quickly so make sure to keep reading. By the way, I am @paralleleconomy on TRUTH Social so please make sure to follow me when you finally get in.
TRUTH Social Pros:
The design of TRUTH Social is Very Good
The app is actually very well built. It’s not ugly, its design is appealing, and the interface makes sense. It basically does the things you’d expect a social media app to do. So, all the people who assumed that President Trump would put out a janky app can go and eat a helping of crow now, because they were wrong.
TRUTH Social has Most of the Features You Need
Aside from the general design of the app, the profile section comes fairly standard with the things you’d expect. You get a header image and a profile photo, a description section and the ability to link to your website.
It’s all the basics, so we’re good to go there. You even get a light mode and a dark mode. The pictures below show what the dark mode looks like.
People have mentioned that the app is basically a Twitter clone. It sorta is, but you get more room to write things, which I actually enjoy. Twitter’s 280 characters might be bigger than they allowed in the past, but it’s still too small for my taste. Each “TRUTH” (their version of a Tweet) can be up to 500 characters long. You can add links, pictures or videos to your TRUTH and sharing works quite well. BTW, the equivalent of a Retweet is a ReTruth.
TRUTH Social Already Has Plenty of People
Despite all the people who claimed that it was going to be a ghost town, there is definitely no shortage of people to follow. When you initially set up your account, there is a whole list of people who are already established on the platform that you can follow right away. I, of course, followed Dan Bongino (@DBongino) right off the bat, but I also followed a number of other well known accounts, including President Trump (@RealDonaldTrump).
I can say that it is true that he has not yet posted anything other than a message telling everyone to get ready and that he’ll see us soon. My suspicion is that the President is waiting for the app to be opened up to everyone (on the iOS platform at least) which is rumored to be scheduled for the end of March. Although, I have no inside information on that, so I guess we’ll just have to wait and see.
TRUTH Social is Functioning Well
Another thing that I noticed, especially on day 2 is that the app is handling the load quite well. I read a number of articles lambasting TRUTH Social for the slow roll out, but one thing I haven’t noticed yet is any of the sorts of hiccups that used to be a staple of other platforms. Twitter used to fail so often in the early days that they invented a mascot for their website when it went down known as the “Fail Whale”.
There is a very functional search feature that allows you to search for Profiles (people) Truths and Hashtags. I’ve tested it out searching for a number of people and found it to be very useful.
TRUTH Social Cons:
President Trump Hasn’t Posted Much on TRUTH Social
I do think that the fact that President Trump hasn’t posted anything recently is a bit of a bummer. It’s not the end of the world, especially since there are so many people already on the site, but I’m sure that there are lots of folks that miss some good, old fashioned “mean tweets”. They don’t have to be mean, but it would be nice to hear from him again on a social media platform.
Featured Images Sometimes Not Loading
Another minor issue I noticed yesterday (not as much today) was the fact that featured images weren’t loading when you shared links. I shared a few news articles and their images (i.e. the featured images from the articles) weren’t pulling into the TRUTH Social app. So, it looked like basically just a hyperlink. As I mentioned, this hasn’t happened yet today, but yesterday, none of my featured images were pulling into my posts.
Direct Messages Not Working Yet on TRUTH Social
There appears to be a Direct Messages feature in the app, but currently it is not functioning. When you open it up, there’s a message waiting for you that says, “Hello A new direct messaging experience will be available soon. Please stay tuned.” It’s not the end of the world, but it would be nice to have the ability to Direct Message people on the platform. Hopefully this feature gets enabled quickly.
Minor Issues With the Feed
There have been a few times when I tried to load my feed and nothing loaded. When I say “few” that is exactly what I mean. I think this has happened about 3 times total. However, it was an issue so I thought it merited mentioning.
Lack of a Web Interface for TRUTH Social
Ease of Use Issues
One major issue that I have with the TRUTH Social platform as a whole, i.e. rather than just the app, is the lack of a web interface. In my opinion, this is a major drawback. Personally, I prefer to use a web interface where possible. It’s just easier to type with a full keyboard and I prefer to share pictures and links from my computer as well. Especially if I designed a meme or something in Photoshop, it’s just easier to upload from my computer.
Risk
The lack of a web interface brings with it yet another even larger downside, however. What do you think is going to happen if someone somewhere does something stupid (i.e. January 6-ish) and it turns out that they discussed it on the app? What if someone stages such an event / social media posts on the app? I am old enough to remember what they did to Parler in response to January 6th.
Despite the fact that the majority of planning actually happened on Facebook and Twitter, they kicked Parler off both major app stores and then off of the internet altogether. It worries me that there is not a web interface for this social network, specifically because I’ve seen these big tech companies in action before. I’m pretty sure Apple would be more than happy to kick TRUTH Social off the app store for any convenient reason.
Final Impressions of TRUTH Social
Overall, I actually really do like this app. I really wish Donald Trump would start posting stuff and I worry a lot about the lack of a web interface. However, it is aesthetically pleasing, feature rich, fairly smooth functioning and definitely well populated. I’m really enjoying using TRUTH Social and look forward to the app being opened up to everyone currently stuck on the waiting list, as well as our fellow patriots on Android.
NOTE: I have a tip for rapidly increasing your followers on TRUTH Social, but I have only shared it in my community on Locals.com. If you’d like to see it, click the link below to join.
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