Two tech executives abruptly resigned this week from Truth Social, the social media company launched by former President Donald Trump as a right-wing alternative to mainstream platforms.
The resignations of leaders — Josh Adams and Billy Boozer, who were hired less than a year ago to serve as Truth Social’s chief technology and product development officers — further highlight the ongoing struggles the social media site has faced since its launch. public launch earlier this year.
The former leaders were reportedly aligned with the main tenets of Truth Social’s mission: to provide a place for Trump loyalists to interact online without regulation, or to avoid “cancel culture,” as many have described it. application of the rules on other sites. (Notably, Trump was banned from Twitter last year after spouting inflammatory rhetoric regarding the 2020 election.)
According to Reuterswho first reported on executive departures, Adams was seen as the “brain” of the technology side of the company, while Boozer had a leadership role in the management and development of the application.
The circumstances of their resignation are currently unknown.
Following the executives’ resignation, the site’s parent company, Trump SPAC Digital World Acquisition, saw its stock fall by 14%continuing a trend of company stock losses that began after the app went live.
Since its launch in mid-February, Truth Social has been riddled with issues and incidents. Hundreds of thousands of users are still on the waiting list to access the site, which is currently only available on the Apple store; the platform is so far completely inaccessible to Android users and through web browsers.
These issues remain despite reassurances from former Republican congressman Devin Nunes, who now runs Truth Social’s parent company, and who previously said the app would be “fully operational” by the end of March. According to an analysis by market research firm SensorTower, Truth Social currently ranks 35th among social media apps, despite Trump’s promise that the platform would be a direct competitor to Facebook and Twitter.
Reviews of the app abound, even among those who can access the site. Rosie Bradbury, European Tech Fellow at Business Intern, recently noted that the site lacked real users, including prominent conservative voices who supposedly planned to have a big presence on the app. The feed is also full of auto-generated posts.
“It was like a conservative ghost town that had been overrun by robots,” Bradbury said of his week-long experience with Truth Social.
The app layout seems to be a carbon copy of the Twitter layout – but instead of tweets and retweets, Truth Social has “truths” and “untruths.”
Although Truth Social was touted as a censorship-free platform, users have already reported being booted from the site. Indeed, Truth Social’s Terms of Service actually allow the company to remove any user “for some reason or no reason.”
