Former President Trump's media platform, Truth Social, premiered its iOS version on Monday, which coincided with President’s Day. 

It currently is the top downloaded free app in the Apple store. And thousands of new users continue the sign-up process.

The full feature rollout is set for March.

The sheer volume of downloads created some glitches. Some of the sign-ups were placed in lengthy queues. And there were some delays in trying to create accounts. Other users reported seeing error messages after their profiles were set up.

Trump’s profile was ready to go. And high-profile conservative personalities were sharing on Twitter that they set up their Truth Social accounts.

Truth Social joins the ranks of some newer social media companies. The new platforms include Gettr, Parler, and video site Rumble. They are all alternatives to their mainstream counterparts. 

The platform was created by the Trump Media Group (TMTG) with financing from the special purpose acquisition company (SPAC), Digital World Acquisition Corp (DWAC).

Truth Social says no censorship

Devin Nunes left Congress to become CEO of TMTG in January.  On Sunday, Nunes, a California Republican, said he hopes Truth Social will be embraced by whoever has been "booted from social media" over the last few years.

"It's just it's very moving for me to see people that are on the platform that have had their voice canceled—And that's our main goal here is to give people their voice back," Nunes told Fox News.

In October 2021, when Trump announced his new social media platform, he said it would be designed to be “a rival to the liberal media consortium.” 

Trump is also anxious to restore his presence on social media.  Trump has been banned from Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube for over a year. When his Twitter account was taken down, Trump had nearly 90 million followers. He also had 34 million followers on Facebook.

Truth Social claims to be different from other platforms. Many users that signed up complain about political and social discrimination and censorship they say is growing on existing social networks. 

The Truth Social team says there is “no political discrimination.”  And they are “canceling cancel culture” and “standing up to Big Tech.”

Twitter-like Open-Source code

The app was created using an open-source license from Mastodon. It has a similar layout and user experience as Twitter.  Since Mastodon was developed as an alternative to Twitter, the similarities are not surprising.

The platform is similar to Twitter where users can post “truths” instead of “tweets”. Then the “truth” posts can be shared with others, again and again, to expand reach to other users.

The Software Freedom Conservancy accused The Trump Media and Technology Group (TMTG) of violating Mastodon’s AGPLv3 license. Because they weren’t sharing the platform’s source code. The website added a dedicated section containing a ZIP archive of its source code two weeks later.