Donald Trump
(Picture: AP)Last week, Donald Trump announced the upcoming launch of a new social media platform called Truth Social. The former president also announced that his latest organization, the Trump Media & Technology Group, would merge with the Digital World Acquisition Corp. to become a publicly listed company.
Holly Collins, the Florida attorney who filed a trademark application for “Truth Social”, has now gone on to file applications for the words “truthing,” and “retruth”, and for the phrases “post a truth,” and “follow the truth“ with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.
The language suggests that Truth Social will be a version of Twitter, as a shared tweet is called a “retweet”. Trump was banned from major social media platforms, including Twitter, following the Jan. 6 U.S. Capitol insurrection.
An application was also filed to trademark a “Follow the Truth” logo from the Truth Social website:
According to a press release and filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, the Trump Media & Technology Group plans to develop a “non-woke” version of Netflix and Disney Plus, news to compete with CNN, and web-hosting to compete with Amazon and Google. Collins also filed to trademark “TMTG” and “TMTG+”.
While Trump has vowed that his new platform will be a place for free speech, the terms of service state that users must agree not to “disparage, tarnish, or otherwise harm, in our opinion, us and/or the Site”. The website also bans “excessive use of capital letters”.
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A staff writer at The Daily Dot was able to access the site and created an accounts under the handle @donaldtrump and log in. The features have since been locked.
Was just able to setup an account using the handle @donaldtrump on 'Truth Social,' former President Donald Trump's new social media website.
— Mikael Thalen (@MikaelThalen) October 21, 2021
Although the site is not officially open, a URL was discovered allowing users to sign up anyway. pic.twitter.com/MRMQzjNhma
Forbes has referred to any major investments in Trump’s new network as being a “sucker’s bet.” Truth Social is set to launch in 2022.
