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Former Trump Aide Jason Miller To Launch New Social App 'Gettr' Backed by Fugitive Chinese Billionaire (axios.com) 170

Posted by BeauHD from the good-luck-with-that dept.
According to Axios, Jason Miller, an aide and close advisor to Donald Trump, is launching a new social app called "Gettr" in the coming days. From the report: The app, which is in beta testing, appears in the Apple App Store and is described as "a non-bias social network for people all over the world." Gettr, which is still in its infancy, appears to have a few thousand users, according to follower counts of some of the more prominent, suggested accounts. Many users, however, appear anonymous, lacking much profile information. The app looks like Twitter, with a scrolling news feed with a small pencil at the bottom for users to compose a message. It has a search function and like Twitter, a trending topics function. While a quick scroll through the accounts suggests patterns pro-conservatism, there's no obvious suggestion that the app is built by Trump allies. Many of the more prominent suggested accounts, including a general news account called "Daily News" appear to have been created in May of this year. [...] It's unclear how Miller plans to debut the app, but sources tell Axios that other former Trump aides will help aide the rollout. "Data shows that almost every major conservative social network has seen a dramatic decrease in downloads since the Capitol insurrection," notes Axios.

One of the most recent conservative social media sites to be launched was FRANK, a social media site envisioned by Mike Lindell of MyPillow. It's off to a rough start though, as it not only resulted in a legal threat before being launched, but it suffered from many "amateur-hour mistakes" during its rollout. A Drupal expert described the code as "not even student work," adding that "they basically launched the site while it was still in development mode."

UPDATE: The Daily Beast notes that Gettr "is backed by a fugitive Chinese billionaire who once invited Steve Bannon to live on his yacht."
What's not made clear to Gettr's new users is that the site received initial funding from a foundation owned by Chinese billionaire Guo Wengui and his family... "Some of the initial seed money has come from his family foundation," Trump adviser Jason Miller said of Guo, who also goes by the name Miles Kwok...

The Trump adviser said the company was backed by a "consortium of international investors," but declined to name them, beyond the Guo foundation, or the total amount of money that has been invested in the new social-media property so far. But while Miller downplayed Guo's connection, sites associated with the billionaire have suggested that Gettr is Guo's brainchild. In a June video on GTV, a media outlet that serves as a mouthpiece for Guo, a host summarizing a recent comment Guo made about Gettr said that the social media platform was "the concentration of Miles's whole life work...."

Guo's legions of social media supporters and trolls were among the first and most vocal adopters of Gettr starting on June 14, the day the app's site went live.
Citing a report from Bloomberg, New York Magazine adds that former U.S. president Trump "is not yet desperate enough to follow one of his aides in a venture that has no financial benefit to him."
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Former Trump Aide Jason Miller To Launch New Social App 'Gettr' Backed by Fugitive Chinese Billionaire More

Former Trump Aide Jason Miller To Launch New Social App 'Gettr' Backed by Fugitive Chinese Billionaire

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  • "they basically launched the site (Score:4, Interesting)

    by oldgraybeard ( 2939809 ) on Friday July 02, 2021 @05:11AM (#61543256)
    while it was still in development mode" mmmm as someone who has done a few projects over the decades, been there done that ;)

    And it is a beautiful thing if you pull it off ;) If not? not so good ;)

  • Gettr? (Score:5, Funny)

    by Joce640k ( 829181 ) on Friday July 02, 2021 @05:26AM (#61543270) Homepage

    Might as well call it "Foxr" and be done with it.

    • Re:Gettr? (Score:5, Funny)

      by algaeman ( 600564 ) on Friday July 02, 2021 @07:07AM (#61543416)
      I think Griftr would make the site's function much clearer.
      • I would say that is pretty close to the point. People who get donations from their following on social media at some point think they could get more money if they created their own little social media cult service. I know of one enterprising individual who has gone from saying the intelligence agencies are trying to kill her to raising over $100,000 US to start her own social media network.

    • Tossr

  • Accessor / mutator (Score:5, Funny)

    by billybob2001 ( 234675 ) on Friday July 02, 2021 @05:38AM (#61543298)

    I think Gettr is the name of the view-only service.

    The interface for posting is presumably called Settr

  • Can't see this taking off (Score:5, Insightful)

    by windypops ( 8247864 ) on Friday July 02, 2021 @05:54AM (#61543330)
    I doubt the future will look back too kindly on this period of resurgent far-right politics. Throw amateur-hour apps in to the mix with amateur-hour security, and you have an excellent way of ensuring your name's associated with your dodgy politics forever more.

    • Re:Can't see this taking off (Score:4, Insightful)

      by kqs ( 1038910 ) on Friday July 02, 2021 @06:34AM (#61543370)

      I'm amused by how many conservatives claim we live in a meritocracy, then release these laughably-bad apps and platforms. Guess we know where they are rated in the sliding scale of merit.

      • Meritocracy was in the past, we've advanced to cronyism.

      • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

        by Anonymous Coward
        It's only a meritocracy when they're winning or when the others are losing. But when they're losing or others are winning it's no longer a meritocracy, because that would mean the loss was deserved. Then it's a conspiracy.

      • Re:Can't see this taking off (Score:4, Interesting)

        by jythie ( 914043 ) on Friday July 02, 2021 @07:12AM (#61543420)
        Meritocracy is a cornerstone of their identity. They believe the best people bubble up, they are the best, and people who disagree with them or serve as counterexamples are upsetting the natural order.

        • They believe the best people bubble up, they are the best, and people who disagree with them or serve as counterexamples are upsetting the natural order.

          Just as, in the past, Kings justified their power by claiming that they were sent by God.

        • They believe the best people bubble up, they are the best,

          Just like the financial firms in 2008 who had "the best and brightest" working for them, but couldn't see the oncoming financial collapse despite millions of voices (mine included) which kept saying you can't pile debt on debt forever, who then went hat in hand to the government begging for money to protet themselves from their own incompetence.

      • If conservatives believe in a meritocracy, then they would support an inheritance tax and do away with stepped up basis on property in inheritance. Those are tools of family wealth concentration and are just a form of welfare for trust fund babies.

      • I'm amused by how many conservatives claim we live in a meritocracy, then release these laughably-bad apps and platforms.

        We do. There's a reason why these apps have the user count they do.

    • Re:Can't see this taking off (Score:5, Insightful)

      by jythie ( 914043 ) on Friday July 02, 2021 @07:10AM (#61543418)
      Well, that is why they are putting so much energy into concentrating the power they have via new voting laws and reducing federal oversight of local and state voting They know they are on the way out, which makes them more desperate and less logical. At this point, there really isn't a 'right' in the US in any specific idealogical way, it is ALL identity and anxiety. And yeah, history will probably look poorly on it, just like every other wave.

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by Kokuyo ( 549451 )

      I mean it's a clown fiesta but these days, I just don't know what to make of "far right" as a term at all anymore.

      I've gone and looked at what people think is far right... it usually corresponds more or less to "Nazi-like"

      So I went and had a look at what the Nazis said, proclaimed and did... and came to the conclusion that it was pretty damn similar to what Stalinist USSR did. Or Mao's China. 90% overlap and like 10 percent divergence.

      So what makes the Nazis 10% divergence the "diametral opposite" of commun

    • I mean it fits the amateur hour fake rage with the amateur hour political discourse and the amateur hour attempt to overthrow the government quite well. Remember even the "shithole" nations can at least get this right :)

  • Already being swamped with fakes. (Score:5, Interesting)

    by SlashDotCanSuckMy777 ( 6182618 ) on Friday July 02, 2021 @06:01AM (#61543340)

    Various leftist reddit communities are flooding the signup and grabbing conservative pundit names haha

  • Already live and shitty (Score:5, Informative)

    by mobby_6kl ( 668092 ) on Friday July 02, 2021 @06:30AM (#61543362)

    "Beta" or not, it's already running and isn't just a clone of twitter functionality, but also of twitter content [twitter.com]. And hotlinked images. [twitter.com] And fake follower counts [twitter.com]

    • Well that's actually interesting. "Embrace and extend" and "if you don't like it, fork it". But with obvious legal issues.

    • Yeah, there's no waaay hotlinking images can go wrong on that scale.

      Let's see.. where can we find a site with goatse...

    • I tried signing up, and the signup process is broken. It gives me a random "Something went wrong" error when I try to put in my e-mail verification code?

      Why do conservatives have so many problems creating a social media platform that doesn't suck? I had similar issues with Parler, which looked like it was coded by a high school student.

      • I tried signing up, and the signup process is broken. It gives me a random "Something went wrong" error when I try to put in my e-mail verification code?

        Why do conservatives have so many problems creating a social media platform that doesn't suck? I had similar issues with Parler, which looked like it was coded by a high school student.

        Maybe they just have a way to detecting if one of us "dirty libs" tries to sign up based on cookies or something?

      • Why do conservatives have so many problems creating a social media platform that doesn't suck?

        When you oppose higher education, you don't end up with the most educated working for you.

      • Signup worked fine for me. Anyway, Parler was working alright. Then Amazon got political. Parler decided to use the downtime to improve things, but the dev team fucked up so badly I can only believe it was intentional. No joke; that is the best explanation for the raging dumpster fire Parler became.

        But then I think they hired a new team. The new Parler is far, far better UI-wise, and more responsive. But a lot of things still don't work.

        Unfortunate. It was going well for quite a while. But we can't have a s

  • Shin Gettr Robo?

  • Why? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by LostMyAccount ( 5587552 ) on Friday July 02, 2021 @07:39AM (#61543468)

    These kinds of sites only work because of the network effect. What kind of network effect do you get with blue collar louts, rural rednecks, neo-Nazis, etc? I mean Trump's politics are all about amplifying the grievances of society's losers, not exactly a crowd that will draw in a lot of outsiders who can provide the site with visibility and the amplification of the network effect.

    Worse yet is the blatant manipulation in attempting to prop up "hot chick" right wing gals. They're about as relevant to actual politics as the bimbos at the car show are to automotive engineering. Maybe it pays better than OnlyFans.

    And that's the other irony -- Trumpism is supposed to be SO POPULAR, yet they can't make a social media site anyone cares about. Meanwhile, OnlyFans does well. What exactly is popular with Americans, Trump or titties?

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by paiute ( 550198 )

      Trumpism is supposed to be SO POPULAR, yet they can't make a social media site anyone cares about. Meanwhile, OnlyFans does well.

      Hold on, man. You just gave them the idea for a new site where Trump strips on camera. You want that on your conscience?

    • And that's the other irony -- Trumpism is supposed to be SO POPULAR, yet they can't make a social media site anyone cares about. Meanwhile, OnlyFans does well. What exactly is popular with Americans, Trump or titties?

      Tig ol Bitties, fo shizzle!

      Trump was never terribly popular. But since the election, he's gone a whole lot less popular

  • I can just imagine their buzzwords (Score:3)

    by Revek ( 133289 ) on Friday July 02, 2021 @07:48AM (#61543486)
    Getrr in the pussy!

  • heh (Score:5, Insightful)

    by nomadic ( 141991 ) <nomadicworld@ g m a i l . com> on Friday July 02, 2021 @07:53AM (#61543496) Homepage

    Every single one of these right-wing "we don't censor!" apps has turned out to vigorously censor anyone who doesn't tow their extremist, right-wing views. Bunch of hypocrites.

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by cusco ( 717999 )

      I used to keep three throw-away email accounts just to register for the forums on the wing-nut sites to post non-inflammatory fact-based and well-documented links that contradicted their talking-point-of-the-day. Generally I'd get about two posts out of each before being banned.

  • "a non-bias social network for people all over the (Score:5, Interesting)

    by jellomizer ( 103300 ) on Friday July 02, 2021 @08:31AM (#61543588)

    "a non-bias social network for people all over the world."
    Translation: A bias propaganda site, to spread the party line, to keep the already right leaning people in line.

    I grew up in a conservative house hold, I have been conservative for a good portion of my adult life, even after graduating from College I had remained conservative.

    Over the last 15 years or so, I had found myself becoming more bias towards the Democrats and their policies and ideals. Not necessarily because I had became a Liberal Shill, but because the Arguments used by the GOP to support their ideas and to detract from the Democrats ideas have devolved into stupid emotional responses, and in general trying to defend being what is is rather universally considered evil behavior.

    Scientist showed there that Global Climate change is real and is human caused. So other debating alternatives to the Democrats plans, they just say it isn't thing, and is just the Democrats who wants to get rid of your cars.

    In America we have a problem with Race and the fact that a person race causes them to be treated differently. So the party of Lincoln other than trying to take the front line and finding a way to improve freedom for all, blames these groups for making them feel bad.

    I don't want to see Liberals take over the United States, there is a lot of value in Conservative Values and ideas, but they have stopped intelligent debate, and have dug into just pushing a party agenda, vs rational ideas on how we need to move forward. But we are not getting this, and these social media sites, will only make it worse. As it will allow the Lowest common denominator become the largest voice, and silencing the people who wants to see a solution.

    Despite what the media says, current social media sites, don't push a political agenda, they have recently had to block fake news and other bad actors trying to push a false narrative. I have seen some of my friends Liberal Posts getting blocked by this as well. However it seems more prevalent with the conservative leaning fake news, so it just happens to hit them more. It isn't that these sites are blocking it because they don't like what it says, but what it says is verifiable false.

    • Re:"a non-bias social network for people all over (Score:5, Informative)

      by AmiMoJo ( 196126 ) on Friday July 02, 2021 @08:56AM (#61543690) Homepage Journal

      Most Democrats are conservatives too, at least by European standards. Biden is centre right, for example.

    • Re:"a non-bias social network for people all over (Score:5, Interesting)

      by AmazingRuss ( 555076 ) on Friday July 02, 2021 @08:58AM (#61543698)
      This is where I'm at. Conservatism has been replaced with a cult, and that cult needs to die. Until the last election, I had never voted for a democrat in my life. I voted a straight democrat ticket, and will continue to do so until the cult is dead, which means I'll probably do so for the rest of my life. Conservatism didn't used to mean "dumb, crazy, and proud of it"

      • Yeah imo republicans have been bad at least since southern strategy, but at least they had some kind of position and ideology you could counter. Now since Trump, there's absolutely nothing but following the Dear Leader and "owning the libs".

    • Re:"a non-bias social network for people all over (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Tarlus ( 1000874 ) on Friday July 02, 2021 @11:51AM (#61544598)

      Among my peers, I've noticed a clear trend where those with a college education tend to lean left, even with a conservative upbringing. Myself included. The rest remain staunchly conservative. Many of those conservatives think college was the left's way of indoctrinating me.

      Maybe it's true. If critical thinking leads me to believe things the scientific community says rather than a self-contradictory book of fairy tales and archaic laws, and this makes me a liberal, then paint me blue. If not giving into socialism FUD - because I didn't devour the bait on that whole shit pile of blatant propaganda - then I guess I lean left. Every minute of 45's campaigns and tenure were frustrating and embarrassing for me, and I guess this makes me leftist.

      Whatever.

      There are some serious existential problems in this world (not just in the US) and these conservative peers of mine aren't going to fucking help.

    • Over the last 15 years or so, I had found myself becoming more bias towards the Democrats

      Just reflecting that the first tonnes we spoke you'd have been a Republican then. Damn we've been here a while.

      On the other hand though back then we could all agree that Senator Orrin (the moron) Hatch was a dickhead. I got that epithet got from someone I could happily describe as a right wing gun nut (no really and he lived in Montana and everything also found out I'm a terrible shot with a revolver), we didn't agree o

  • Burn him! (Score:3)

    by cascadingstylesheet ( 140919 ) on Friday July 02, 2021 @08:32AM (#61543596) Journal

    According to Axios, Jason Miller, an aide and close advisor to Donald Trump

    Burn the witch!

  • "Data shows that almost every major conservative social network has seen a dramatic decrease in downloads since the Capitol insurrection," notes Axios.

    "Axios stressed that more research may still be needed to tell whether shooting unarmed protesters is in fact the safest and most effective way to reduce protests, but the early results show promise."

  • Seems like he misspelled "gutter"

  • https://gettr.com/post/p4sl7 [gettr.com]

    Post Matt Schlapp @mschlappFebruary 11, 2015
    Happy to announce that @IngrahamAngle will be participating in CPAC 2015! #CPAC2015

    Posted on 4:35 PM Feb 11, 2015

  • I'm sure when it fails we'll be treated to fox news coverage about how it was antifa's fault.
  • and be honest about it?
  • How long until "Gettr done?"

  • Useless without a settr (Score:4, Funny)

    by AcidFnTonic ( 791034 ) on Friday July 02, 2021 @08:59AM (#61543708) Homepage

    Every coder knows it's useless without a settr.

  • Get her? I thought we were supposed to grab her.

  • I'd be interested in Trump's reaction if this were to be crazy successful and Milller suddenly became more wealthy than Trump. Would Trump's reaction be....

    1. Congratulatory towards a friend and associate having success?
    2. Jealously from a prior subordinate who "got lucky" riding his coattails?
    3. Claim it was his idea and sue claiming he should own 51%?
    4. Other?

  • Who the fuck thinks this is a good idea?
    Yes, it would be funny if they made checkmarks, maybe red ones, and refused to verify leftists and liberals, mirroring what twitter does. But who fucking needs another twitter? We donâ(TM)t even need the first fucking twitter, it sucks goat ass.

    Also how is a conservative supposed to decide between Parler and Gettr and whatever the pillow salesman is gonna launch? If they want to do a network effect, their best bet would be to pile onto gab, a free speech site.

  • Complete and utter bullshit, it'll be biased as fuck from the first millisecond.

  • https://talkingpointsmemo.com/... [talkingpointsmemo.com]

    The Chinese billionaire behind the GETTR app it is a very unsavory character:

    https://foreignpolicy.com/2020... [foreignpolicy.com]

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