(Photo
by
Win
McNamee/Getty
Images)
As
you’ll
recall,
the
defining
moment
that
lead
to
Donald
Trump
creating
his Truth
Social Twitter
clone
was
his
being banned
from
Twitter for
potentially
egging
on
further
violence
on
January
6th.
Even
before
Truth
Social
was
started,
Trump’s
most
vocal
and
loyal…
well,
let’s
just
call
them
“fans,”
kept
insisting
that
what
was
needed
was
a
social
media
site
that
didn’t
do
any
moderation
at
all
—
or,
at
the
very
least,
did
no
moderation
based
on
viewpoint.
Of
course,
as
we’ve
explained
for
years
now,
such
a
thing
is
literally
impossible.
And
every
new
social
media
service
that
pops
up
promising
no
moderation
learns
this
the
hard
way,
often
to
hilarious
results.
There
was
Parler,
which promised
it
would
only
moderate based
on
“the
FCC
and
the
Supreme
court
of
the
United
States”
until
it
realized
that’s
not
actually
a
thing,
and
started
banning
people
for
all
sorts
of
things,
including
“posting
pictures
of
your
fecal
matter.”
Its
former
CEO
also
bragged
about “banning
leftists,” something
the
website
seemed
to
do with
glee.
Then,
there
was
Gettr,
another
Twitter
clone
started
by
former
Trump
aide
(and SLAPP
suit
filer)
Jason
Miller
with
funding
from
a
Chinese
billionaire
famous
for suing
news
organizations (not
very
free
speechy).
Gettr
also
positioned
itself
as
the
“free
speech”
site
that
wouldn’t
moderate
the
way
Twitter
did.
Then,
when
the
site
was
overrun
with
extreme
white
nationalists,
the
site
suddenly
started banning
them.
It
also
would ban
users for
suggesting
its
billionaire
backer
was
a
spy.
Over
and
over
again,
we
see
that
these
sites
are
not
only
not
actually
about
less
moderation
and
more
“free
speech”
but
we
see
that
they’re
worse
at
the
moderation
game
—
a
lot
less
principled,
and
just
generally
a
mess.
Enter
Trump’s
Truth
Social.
Announced
to
great
fanfare,
and
with
yet
another
habitual suer
of
news
organizations,
Devin
Nunes,
put
in
charge.
As
we’ve
noted,
Truth
Social
has
also
found
it difficult
to
attract
users and
prospective
users
have
admitted
the
site
just isn’t
that
much
fun.
We’ve
also
highlighted
how,
from
the
beginning
Truth
Social
has
quite strict
terms
of
service,
and
Nunes
promised aggressive
content
moderation (even
while
framing
the
site
as
being
more
free
speech
supporting).
We’ve
seen
some
of
this
play
out
—
for
example
in banning
people for
truthing
about
the
January
6th
hearings
(apparently,
not that kind
of
truth
is
allowed).
Now,
Public
Citizen
has
released
a
report,
looking
more
closely
at
Truth
Social’s
content
moderation
practices
and
concluding
that content
moderation
on
the
site
is
extremely
aggressive
and
quite
arbitrary.
“Truth
Social
is
far
from
the
haven
of
free
speech
that
Trump
promised,
as
even
conservative
viewpoints
and
links
have
been
shadow-banned,”
said
Cheyenne
Hunt-Majer,
a
fellow
for
Public
Citizen
and
author
of
the
report.
“It’s
not
at
all
clear
how
Truth
Social
determines
which
content
will
be
labled
as
sensitive,
why
some
content
is
censored
after
it’s
posted,
and
why
other
content
seems
to
be
preemptively
blocked
from
appearing
on
the
platform
at
all.”
The
report
looked
at
a
variety
of
types
of
content.
Not
surprisingly
(to
anyone
paying
attention
to
reality),
more
progressive
messaging
was
regularly
silenced.
Again,
while
Trumpists
love
to
insist
that
Twitter,
Facebook
and
others
are
deliberately
trying
to
silence
conservative
talking
points,
actual
evidence
suggests
that’s just
not
true.
However,
it
appears
that
Truth
Social
has
no
problem
suppressing
content
based
on
political
viewpoints:
In
June
2022,
Truth
Social
users
reported
that
any
post
containing
the
phrase
“abortion
is
healthcare”
would
automatically
be
shadow
banned
from
the
platform.
Much
of
this
report
describes
my
firsthand
experience
on
Truth
Social.
When
I
attempted
to
post
the
phrase
“abortion
is
healthcare,”
I
received
the
standard
notification
that
my
“truth
had
been
posted,”
which
would
usually
signify
that
my
post
would
now
be
visible
on
my
personal
profile
and
on
my
feed.
Instead,
the
post
was
nowhere
to
be
found.
I
made
a
video
explaining
that
my
“truth”
had
seemingly
disappeared
into
a
black
hole
that
went
viral
on
Tik
Tok
with
over
1.2
million views
to
date.
Five
days
after
I
initially
tried
to
post
my
“truth”,
after
my
Tik
Tok
video
attracted
such
significant
attention,
it
suddenly
appeared.
As
a
result,
the
first
interactions
with
the
post
including
comments
and
likes
are
dated
five
days
after
the
date
of
posting.
In
July
2022,
I
attempted
to
post
a
response
to
another
user’s
“truth,”
in
which
he
argued
that
only
those
that
know
everything
about
firearms
have
the
right
to
protest
gun
related
issues.
My
response
read,
“And
if
you
don’t
own
a
uterus
and
know
everything
about
women’s
health,
you
have
NO
right
to
regulate
abortion
or
birth
control.
When
you
think
they
can’t
get
any
more
hypocritical,
this
post
says,
‘yes
they
can.’”
That
post
was
similarly
blocked
and
also
never
showed
up
on
my
profile
or
feed.
It
wasn’t
just
left-leaning
content
that
was
blocked
however,
The
report
details
tons
of
other
content,
including
content
that
would
normally
be
welcomed
in
the
Trump
universe
that
was
also
blocked.
Users
also
complained
that
links
to
articles
on
external
websites
were
being
blocked.
One
user
suggested
that
they
were
unable
a
link
to
a
Breitbart
article
claiming
that
former
President
Obama
was
responsible
for
an
influx
of
crime
committed
by
immigrants
protected
by
the
Deferred
Action
for
Childhood
Arrivals
program.
When
I
tried
to
post
the
link,
it
never
showed
up
on
my
profile
or
feed.
Setting
aside
the
merrits
of
the
decision
to
deplatform
the
Breitbart
article,
it’s
worth
noting
that
the
article
doesn’t
seem
to
violate
any
of
their
stated
terms
of
service.
The
report
also
found
that
when
content
was
blocked,
there
seemed
to
be
no
explanation
or
opportunity
to
appeal
—
two
other
things
that
Trumpists
often
insist
social
media
should
have.
Again,
it
shouldn’t
necessarily
be
surprising
to
anyone
that
Truth
Social
is
a
heavily
moderated
garbage
dump.
As
we’ve
explained
so
many
times, every such
website
needs
to
have
some
level
of
moderation
or
they
quickly
become
absolutely
useless.
It’s
also
not
really
much
of
a
surprise
that
Truth
Social
is
overly
aggressive,
and
somewhat
arbitrary
in
its
moderation.
As
we’ve
explained,
at
scale
(even
the
very
small
scale
of
a
Truth
Social) content
moderation
is
impossible
to
do
well.
And,
I’d
argue
it’s
even
more
difficult
to
be
coherent
if
you
don’t
fundamentally
understand
content
moderation/trust
and
safety,
and
it’s
quite
clear
that
this
is
the
case
with
Truth
Social.
However,
it
would
be
nice
if
all
the
very
confident,
but
very
wrong,
people
who
insisted
(1)
that
there
should
be
no
moderation
at
all,
and
(2)
that
Trump’s
site
wouldn’t
have
any
moderation
would
recognize
that
they
were
wrong.
And
maybe,
just
maybe,
recognize
that
every
time
they
flipped
out
over
content
moderation
decisions
on
other
platforms
that
they
didn’t
agree
with
—
it
was
because
you’re
just
not
going
to
agree
with
how
every
moderation
decision
is
made.
Somehow,
I
doubt
it.
I
expect
we’ll
quickly
hear
more
unproven
nonsense
about
how
Twitter
and
Facebook
are
obviously
against
conservatives
(they’re
not)
and
excuses
for
why
Truth
Social’s
content
moderation
scheme
is
somehow
acceptable
(it’s
laughable).
But,
rest
assured,
if
you
believe
(incorrectly)
that
content
moderation
is
censorship,
then
Truth
Social
is
a
hell
of
a
lot
more
censorial
than
Twitter.
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