How Trump turned his Truth Social app into a megaphone

The Star

5 days ago

Although Truth Social is tiny compared to X, Trump can post to 10.5 million followers knowing that he is being followed by the media and political establishment, with much of what he says quickly being reposted to rival platforms. — AFP
PARIS: Donald Trump has turned his obscure Truth Social platform into a megaphone in his second presidential term – constantly posting everything from major policy announcements to personal threats and unashamed self-promotion.
To mark his first six months back in power, Trump unloaded around 40 posts Sunday on the app he owns and can use unfettered by moderators, censors or fact-checkers.
The deluge was characteristic of the way he has transformed Truth Social, despite being a minnow in the social media world, into the White House's primary means of communication.
AFP analysed over 2,800 Truth Social posts by @realDonaldTrump from his inauguration on January 20, 2025 up to July 20 to get a better idea of how the Republican communicates.
Sidelining the White House press office, the president speaks straight to his hardcore base, posting an average of 16 messages a day, many in all-caps rants peppered with exclamation marks and the odd expletive.
Although Truth Social is tiny compared to X, Trump can post to 10.5 million followers knowing that he is being followed by the media and political establishment, with much of what he says quickly being reposted to rival platforms.
Trump repays the favour, helping to create a right-wing media ecosystem that invariably circles back to him. Since January 20, he has shared Fox News articles 101 times, and the New York Post and Breitbart News 51 times each.
"The minute he puts something on Truth Social, others pick it up and echo it," said Darren Linvill, a social media and disinformation specialist at Clemson University in South Carolina.
Alternative to Twitter
In his first term, Trump relied in a similar way on what was then known as Twitter – renamed X on being purchased by Elon Musk.
But after Trump's attempt to overthrow his loss in the 2020 election, he was banned by Twitter and Facebook and briefly persona non grata in Washington.
Although once more present on the bigger alternatives, Trump continues to prefer Truth Social.
The posts vary wildly in content, all part of Trump's brand of mixing politics with entertainment. And the style deliberately mimics Trump's verbal ticks – the bombast, salesmanship and exaggeration.
"Vladimir, STOP," he posted on April 24, after Russia launched an especially heavy bombing of Kyiv.
Russian President Vladimir Putin did not stop, but Trump's two-word plea earned heavy media coverage.
Half of his posts used at least one exclamation point and 155 were written in all-caps.
One post on March 23, promoting his cryptocurrency $Trump, read: "I LOVE $TRUMP – SO COOL!!! The Greatest of them all!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"
Controlling the narrative
Trump's posts are a way for him to keep the public on its toes and to change the narrative by giving journalists a new "rabbit hole" to follow when needed, said presidential historian Alvin Felzenberg.
The leader of the world's biggest economy knows investors are paying equally close attention.
As markets plunged following Trump's tariffs announcements, he used Truth Social on March 10 to pump out articles predicting optimistic economic outcomes.
On April 9, just as stock prices were tanking, he posted: "THIS IS A GREAT TIME TO BUY!!!"
And hours later, he announced a 90-day suspension of additional tariffs against dozens of countries, triggering the best day for the S&P 500 index since the recovery from the 2008 financial crisis.
The timing led to accusations from Democrats of an insider trader scheme.
"Truth Social doesn't quite have the firepower that I think Twitter had..., but it's still impactful enough that it can at times move the market," says Stephen Innes, managing partner at SPI Asset Management. – AFP