Truth or reconciliation?
Trump has made clear his commitment to his own platform, Truth Social, writes Chris Stevenson. But the question is for how long he can resist the temptation to return to Twitter
Donald Trump is back on Twitter. Or at least, his account has been reinstated by Elon Musk.
Musk, who recently bought the social media platform for $44bn (£37bn), initiated a poll on reinstating the former US president’s account. Trump was suspended in 2021 over the risk of incitement of violence, in the days that followed the storming of the US Capitol. And not just from Twitter: his Facebook,
Instagram and YouTube accounts were also suspended. After more than 15 million votes, it emerged that 51.8 per cent of those who had taken part in the Twitter poll had voted to restore Trump’s account.
At the time of writing, the last tweet on the account is from 8 January 2021, and it doesn’t take much scrolling back to see tweets containing the former president’s false claims that he had won the 2020 presidential election against Joe Biden. The account is also down from 88 million followers in 2021 to around 52 million.
So why hasn’t Trump – who is not normally one to shy away from using a large potential audience to his advantage – instantly returned to the platform? Particularly as he has announced another run for president in 2024, not to mention the fact that he used his Truth Social platform to encourage his followers to take part in the poll. “Vote now with positivity, but don’t worry, we aren’t going anywhere. Truth Social is special,” he said.
Earlier in the day, before he was reinstated, Trump was asked whether he planned to return to Twitter by a panel at the Republican Jewish Coalition’s annual leadership meeting. “I don’t see any reason for it,” Trump said. The former president also talked up Truth Social, which was developed by his Trump Media & Technology Group start-up, saying it had better user engagement than Twitter and was doing “phenomenally well”. So here is the obvious reason that Trump might not return to Twitter fully – he has a financial interest in making Truth Social succeed.
However, the difference in user base between the two platforms is stark. According to web analytics company Similar Web, there were a total of 8 million visits to the Truth Social website via desktop or mobile app across the last month, while Twitter had 7 billion visits. App analysts Sensor Tower estimated that 92,000 people had downloaded Truth Social in September, with nearly 15 million Twitter downloads across the same period.
It will be interesting to see how long Trump lasts without returning to Twitter, as it was such a big part of his presidential
run in 2020, allowing him to rally his supporters and weigh in instantly on any number of issues – and by doing so, he was able to dominate the news cycle for days at a time. Whatever financial considerations may exist for the former president in regard to Truth Social, I would bet it won’t take him too long to return to what was once his favourite platform.
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