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Trump's Truth App Bans Criticism of Itself - and Also 'Excessive Use of Capital Letters' (msn.com) 225

Time magazine spotted three things in the terms of service for former U.S. president Trump's "Truth Social" site: - Despite advertising itself as a platform that will "give a voice to all," according to a press release, TRUTH Social's terms of service state that users may not "disparage, tarnish, or otherwise harm, in our opinion, us and/or the Site." In other words, any user who criticizes Trump or the site can be kicked off the platform...

- [W]hile portraying itself as a refuge for free speech and the "first major rival to 'Big Tech,'" TRUTH Social's terms of service make it clear that the platform not only intends to moderate content — just as Twitter and Facebook do — but reserves the right to remove users for any reason it deems necessary. The terms go on to say that if TRUTH Social decides to terminate or suspend your account, the platform may also sue you — something that Twitter and Facebook's terms don't say. "In addition to terminating or suspending your account, we reserve the right to take appropriate legal action, including without limitation pursuing civil, criminal, and injunctive redress," TRUTH Social's terms state...

- Maybe most notably, the site's list of prohibited activities includes the "excessive use of capital letters," an idiosyncrasy that Trump became known for on Twitter and that no other major social network specifically bans. TRUTH Social's terms also contain some sections written in all-caps.

The terms also specify explicitly that the site considers itself "not responsible" for the accuracy/reliability of what's posted on the site. Yet the Washington Post reports the newly-formed "Trump Media & Technology Group" has already applied for trademark rights for the terms "truthing," "post a truth," and "retruth."

Meanwhile, the Software Freedom Conservancy believes the end of the site's public test launch was directly tied to a recently-discovered violation of a Conservancy license. "Once caught in the act, Trump's Group scrambled and took the site down."

One of the license's authors emphasizes that the license "purposefully treats everyone equally (even people we don't like or agree with), but they must operate under the same rules of the copyleft licenses that apply to everyone else..." To comply with this important FOSS license, Trump's Group needs to immediately make that Corresponding Source available to all who used the site today while it was live. If they fail to do this within 30 days, their rights and permissions in the software are automatically and permanently terminated. That's how AGPLv3's cure provision works — no exceptions — even if you're a real estate mogul, reality television star, or even a former POTUS."
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Trump's Truth App Bans Criticism of Itself - and Also 'Excessive Use of Capital Letters'

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  • Hypocrisy has always been , and likely always will be, the language of politics.

    Do as we say, not as we do has been the mantra of all politicians for all of history.

    One set of rules for us, another set for you.

    This is just Trump demonstrating that whether he's the POTUS or not, he remains a politician.

  • 5...4...3...2..1.. Truth Social is GO!
  • by Gravis Zero ( 934156 ) on Sunday October 24, 2021 @12:54PM (#61922365)

    Sounds like "TRUTH" is unable to handle the very thing it is named for. Instead of being the "free speech" site that every right-wing platform has claimed to be, it's just another right-wing echo chamber where criticizing their viewpoint will get your kicked off the platform.

    If the people that invented these sites lacked any more self-awareness then they wouldn't qualify as sentient.

  • Even the name TRUTH does not trump Trump sycophant Kelly Ann Conway's term "alternative facts." Fill in the blanks: TRUTH is to truth as ... is to ...

  • And nothing of value was lost.

    • by cusco ( 717999 )

      In the 1970s a Soviet general told writer Farley Mowat, "The difference between American propaganda and Soviet propaganda is that we don't believe ours."

  • Catching an all-caps message and just folding the case of the entire message to lower-case is such a trivially easy thing to do. It's actually less code and less server load than rejecting the messages and providing a error about why.

  • by PopeRatzo ( 965947 ) on Sunday October 24, 2021 @01:19PM (#61922441) Journal

    I completely agree with Trump's plan to enforce civil prosecutions against excessive use of capital letters.

    It's about time we put a stop to this abomination.

  • "Let's Go Brandon" or "Jeffrey Epstein Didn't Kill Himself"?
  • by mspohr ( 589790 ) on Sunday October 24, 2021 @01:47PM (#61922509)

    I'm really confused. I kept reading about how Facebook was going to re-brand itself and then this "Truth Social" brand popped up.
    I thought that this was Facebook's brilliant idea to rebrand itself.
    Am I right?

    • by shanen ( 462549 )

      Maybe the funniest so far, but I'm still waiting for someone to do a proper parody of the Fight Club rules for TRUTH Club...

      Then I can add the Zeroth rule: "But no rule applies to the WTF Leader of TRUTH Club."

  • Perhaps someone will write a bot that posts a lot of random quotes from religious scriptures, cookie recipies and 2 week old news stories for these fanatics.
  • Humorous (Score:2, Funny)

    by SuperKendall ( 25149 )

    Funny to use scare quotes around 'Excessive Use of Capital Letters' on a platform that has exactly the same posting filter.

    If it's good enough for Slashdot....

  • by nospam007 ( 722110 ) * on Sunday October 24, 2021 @02:54PM (#61922673)

    Which are a sure sign of a disturbed mind, according to Terry Pratchett.

  • by VeryFluffyBunny ( 5037285 ) on Sunday October 24, 2021 @03:34PM (#61922735)
    ...may need help with how to turn caps lock off.
  • Pravda (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Sarusa ( 104047 ) on Sunday October 24, 2021 @04:24PM (#61922835)

    Leave it to Trump to call his new media platform Pravda without a hint of irony. And then make one of the rules that you can't post pravda about Pravda.

  • Absolutely shocked [slashdot.org].

  • It's just going to be an echo chamber of like minded people preaching to like minded people who are already versed in Trumpist dogma

    Is as if this was created just to see how low the bar can be set for (anti)social media.

  • "...Software Freedom Conservancy believes the end of the site's public test launch was directly tied to a recently-discovered violation of a Conservancy license. "Once caught in the act, Trump's Group scrambled and took the site down."..."

    Shouldn't that be EXACTLY what they should do if they find they're violating a GPL or whatever? Stop to make sure they're in compliance?

  • Happy Fun Ball(tm).

  • The Group should register the term "post truth" since they have created, apart from ushering in the era, a second way of doing that.
  • "Truth", in Russian is "" (Pravda) - which is also the name of the official newspaper / propaganda outlet of the Soviet Communist Party. May I presume that it's not just a happy accident that the service is named after a Soviet propaganda channel? I'm guessing that Trump's overseas supporters are soiling their trousers from laughing so hard.

It's a naive, domestic operating system without any breeding, but I think you'll be amused by its presumption.

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