Trump-Backed 'Truth Social' Tops Apple's App Store Charts (cnbc.com) 294
Truth Social, a new social media platform backed by former President Donald Trump, sat at the top of Apple's free apps download charts as of Tuesday morning. CNBC reports: The platform unveiled a soft launch late Sunday, according to Reuters, with many users prompted to join a waitlist. Some who tried to sign up reported glitches when attempting to create an account, though such issues are common in early app releases. Truth Social has been delayed several times. The full launch was first planned for Feb. 21, but that date has been pushed back to March 31.
The app is a product of the Trump Media & Technology Group, led by former Rep. Devin Nunes, R-Calif. The company has planned to go public via merger with the Digital World Acquisition Corp., a special purpose acquisition corporation, or SPAC, with a market cap of more than $3 billion. DWAC disclosed in December that two financial regulators had opened probes into communications with Trump's firm prior to the deal announcement. [...] The platform aims to distinguish itself through its content moderation philosophy, with the website calling it "America's 'Big Tent' social media platform that encourages an open, free, and honest global conversation without discriminating against political ideology." Even so, Nunes previously told Fox Business the company will have content moderation to ensure it remains a "family-friendly" space.
The app is a product of the Trump Media & Technology Group, led by former Rep. Devin Nunes, R-Calif. The company has planned to go public via merger with the Digital World Acquisition Corp., a special purpose acquisition corporation, or SPAC, with a market cap of more than $3 billion. DWAC disclosed in December that two financial regulators had opened probes into communications with Trump's firm prior to the deal announcement. [...] The platform aims to distinguish itself through its content moderation philosophy, with the website calling it "America's 'Big Tent' social media platform that encourages an open, free, and honest global conversation without discriminating against political ideology." Even so, Nunes previously told Fox Business the company will have content moderation to ensure it remains a "family-friendly" space.
The ban hammer is in full swing (Score:2, Funny)
Re:The ban hammer is in full swing (Score:4, Insightful)
And people are already getting banned for spreading inconvenient truth.
Many (most?) truths are inconvenient. Just sayin' ...
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And people are already getting banned for spreading inconvenient truth.
What did you expect? How else were Dumpepeacho's Natzis gonna ensure their own snowflake safe space?
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Apple is 'muricah!', Android isn't.
If I understood news articles correctly, school kids who use Android phones in class-related conversations between students are marked by a different color on Apple phones that participate in the same conversation between class mates.
And the "Android kids" apparently get shamed for that.
If that all sounds a bit like a caste society or by marking people with color borderline racist...you would not be wrong. It should also make clear why Trump would go for the iOS phones fir
Re:The ban hammer is in full swing (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:The ban hammer is in full swing (Score:5, Insightful)
What he cares about is spreading his "version" of the truth, one where he is a hero and only ever speaks facts.
He only really cares about being (perceived to be) very smart, wealthy, famous and powerful, etc... You know, narcissistic stuff.
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He also cares about donations.
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He also cares about donations.
And lawsuits, which he keeps losing. Next up, being sued by a British green energy company [imgur.com] because the con artist couldn't come up with a better logo.
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You forgot stable and a genious.
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Polygraphs only work when the subject knows they're lying. The strain of holding two conflicting stories - the real truth, and the fiction - in the head is made manifest in pulse, breath rate, and skin conductance. I expect Trump would pass with flying colors, because in his head there is no conflict.
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Not true! He also cares a great deal about grift.
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You forgot the other side of the coin: grievance. He only loves to be the hero for successes. Anything that doesn't go his way, he'll claim that he's the victim of some nefarious scheme. This is generally true for most people: they're proud of any success that comes their way (even undeserved), and dodge responsibility for their failures. In Trump's case (and, increasingly, for a large slice o
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No one is saying that Trump's new app isn't allowed to ban people if they want. They're just saying that it was laughable for anyone to believe that it was ever going to be some uncensored utopia. At a basic level, no discussion forum can operate without some form of moderation because even a tiny percentage of antisocial people can flood the whole thing with garbage otherwise. It's the same reason why your free speech rights in meat space don't allow you to set up a PA system powerful enough to shatter win
Re:The ban hammer is in full swing (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:The ban hammer is in full swing (Score:5, Insightful)
Yup...back to the start of time... My views are getting sensored, so I want to start out a new network for free speach. Total freedom... and to maintain that freedom I'll need to censor views that contradict my free speach.
You are so right. It's even written into their TOS [imgur.com] they can remove you if you say anything disparaging about the site or them in general. You know, sort of like how Twitter has a TOS which says when they can ban you.
Re: The ban hammer is in full swing (Score:3)
That last part is the funniest and saddest part of it. The Right actually enjoy quite a bit of promotion on Twitter, YouTube, Reddit, Facebook, Instagram, Google search, etc.
Research shows that the Rightest view points are spread more far and wide than Leftist and most importantly more so than corrections or authority & evidenced based facts.
By whining so much, they are basically deafening their loudest echo chambers. For certain, the Dems would have done nothing to target the social space. The Republic
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And what is this about: harass, , intimidate, or threaten any of our employees or agents engaged in providing any portion of the Service to you. seems kind of infallible and personal. Added just to protect Devin Nunes and his cow?
And this seems overly broad for a website that talks truth and does not censor: Post offensive or sexual content on the Site or App
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Truth nor social. (Score:5, Insightful)
If the past is anything to go by, it'll neither be truth nor social.
Re:Truth nor social. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Truth nor social. (Score:5, Informative)
Pravda = Truth; Izvestia = News
As the saying goes "there's no truth in Pravda and no news in Izvestia"
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Re:Truth nor social. (Score:4, Insightful)
He'd be doing even less than Biden.
Re:Truth nor social. (Score:5, Interesting)
If the past is anything to go by, it'll neither be truth nor social.
This is just an iOS app for his existing Truth Social social network that everyone but the people on it had already forgotten about. I actually thought this was a third attempt at starting a social network until I went to look up the details about the previous two social networks I thought he had, only to realize that this was the same one that violated Mastodon's open source software license [theverge.com] last year. Who knew it was still around?
Anyway, this is not to be confused with his previous attempt at a "social platform" [theverge.com], which wasn't really a platform at all and which shut down less than a month later [theverge.com].
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Don't read too much into it. (Score:2)
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> I hate the SOB but I downloaded the app.
I bet 3/4 of the signees are there are vent about the orange dude. He can probably make a lot of money posting ads for anti T memorabilia.
If anyone can get rich off hate, he can. He loves three things: praise, attention, and money. If he can't get all 3, he'll take 2: attention and money.
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This reminds me of something Terry Pratchett wrote about hatred:
Granny Weatherwax was firmly against fiction. Life was hard enough without lies floating around and changing the way people thought. And because the theatre was fiction made flesh, she hated the theatre most of all. But that
was it – hate was exactly the right word. Hate is a force of attraction. Hate is just love with its back turned.
I don't hate Trump; I *despise* him; therefore I am perfectly content to leave him to howl into his personal online void. But the man's ability to evoke hatred keeps him culturally significant. He is such a pathological eyeball magnet that he's irresistible to any engagement-driven media.
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Re: Don't read too much into it. (Score:5, Insightful)
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Why does he live rent free in your head?
When it comes to people not letting things go, there's still regularly Trump supporters gathered on the street corners in my area of central Florida. I'm not even sure what they're protesting, because Trump won Florida. Perhaps they can't afford to travel to a blue state and protest in front of people whose votes' for Biden actually counted?
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Then you'd really see people who refuse to let things go.
Re: Don't read too much into it. (Score:5, Informative)
> Why does he live rent free in your head? He's no longer the president
He's the de-facto leader of roughly 2/3 of Republicans, and thus carries a lot of influence. He's probably the 2nd most influential person in the USA after Joe.
> you've got what you wanted [list of complaints]
I'd be curiously how specifically DJT would solve any of them. I often ask DJT fans, and only get vague talking points, or "solutions" with tricky trade-offs. DJT had a chance to show he's magic, but turned out to be very mortal. Too mortal.
> your communist utopia
Joe's a centrist. You exaggerate. Stop it.
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Ignoring him didn't help make him lose in 2016. He is powerful and his voice is loud. Biden is most absolutely NOT everything I want in a president. He's too far centrist for my taste. He's pro-u
Re: Don't read too much into it. (Score:3)
The red wave comes once a month for most women. But it seems to be constant for every single alt-right "man"
Re: Don't read too much into it. (Score:2, Interesting)
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Can you specify which policies specifically and how they were directly connected?
I've heard this quite a bit but everyone who has attempted to articulate it ends up boiling it down to orange man bad. I get it, there are politicians and political positions I don't like too. It just doesn't make everything the root cause of all evil perpetuated by other people's incompetence down the road.
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> Goodness, that Trump bloke has no class at all.
Welcome to Earth! How was your deep-space trip?
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Hate to break your bubble but Canada isn't under martial law. It is under the Emergencies Act but that is nowhere near martial law (especially the part of the act that being invoked).
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I hate the SOB but I downloaded the app. I'm now on some kind of waiting list.
It worked for Howard Stern, too. [youtube.com]
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I hate the SOB but I downloaded the app. I'm now on some kind of waiting list.
You and thousands of other people. From Here's the real truth about Donald Trump's Truth Social app [cnn.com]:
"Thank you for joining! Due to massive demand, we have placed you on our waitlist. We love you, and you're not just another number to us. But your waitlist number is below."
That number, you ask? Oh, 401,477.
(In better news, I got an email from Truth Social celebrating my new account and telling me I was 321,477 on the waitlist. Boom!)
But, don't worry, 'cause the love ...
Inconvenient Truth (Score:5, Insightful)
So, Trump's Truth Social app, catering to his MAGA crying, America First believers is at the top of the charts on Apple's App store, getting loaded on more MADE IN CHINA Apple phones than they could ever admit.
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Nuance is entirely lost on his followers. Not every person who voted Trump is a Trump follower. A lot of thoughtful conservatives held their noses (and their tongues, and their dignity) because they REALLY didnt w
Re: Inconvenient Truth (Score:5, Informative)
I agree with you but just a reminder: most voters did not vote for him.
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"...most voters did not vote for him."
*something something* rIgGeD eLeCtIoN!
Re: Inconvenient Truth (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't think this is highlighted enough: He was elected by the Electoral College, which is composed of unelected bureaucrats. The people voted for someone else, both times. So, removing the College from the process seems like a stupid-easy step to shore up democracy. Especially considering that the College hasn't a single time in 250 years actually served the purpose they were put there for. (As an aside, none of the Trumpistas I've asked know what that purpose is. I get the feeling their heads would explode if they did.)
There's zero reason to maintain the Electoral College unless you benefit from its gerrymandering effect. When you look at the elections in which the College installed a different President than the people voted for - which is happening with increasing frequency - it becomes clear who the system favors.
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2) There is no "gerrymandering" for the presidential election. Senatorial either. There are only two states, Maine and Nebraska where the electors can be split by district. There are two districts in Nebraska and only one in Maine. Out of 538 electors, I'd say it's hardly a rea
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You cite 2 states where Electoral College votes are assigned in a fractional (representative) fashion. They assign electors in proportion to the popular vote. I wish every state ran that way, because the problem would be mostly solved. The issue is that the other 48 states (96% of the EC and the Senate) are winner-take-all. A state that votes 48% D and 52% R will send 0% Ds to the Senate and EC. A 1% win in each state would turn into a 100% win nationally. That is, single-party rule. (We de facto have this
Electoral College [Re: Inconvenient Truth] (Score:5, Interesting)
The EC's purpose in part is to keep populated states from swamping the will of less populated ones. But the ratios in population grew more extreme since the 1700's. The founding fathers may have taken a different approach had they known the ratios would grow.
The non-PC way to describe the EC is "affirmative action for rednecks".
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The only majority of votes he got was with the electoral college, once only. 52% of the voters actuall preferred the lesser evil or had a different idea of who the lesser evil was. I don't blame anyone for voting for Trump. But those who did it twice and did not hold their nose while doing so and were cheerleading for him, I really don't think they were paying attention.
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What about the people who only voted for him once, but in 2020? And please don't try to claim that they were all too young to vote in 2016.
Those people are morally bankrupt idiots, but they are neither so morally bankrupt nor so idiotic as those who did it twice. At least they have demonstrated the ability to learn from mistakes.
Yes, it was obvious long before Trump's first presidency that he was an unabashed grifter* who no one should ever trust on any subject at any time. But many people miss the obvious. I can forgive people for voting for Trump once. Not twice.
* Side note, grifter is not in Firefox's dictionary. Guess that explains this wh
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and 52% of our voters went along with it.
No, actually. He lost the popular vote.
Only 46% of voters went along with it.
Re:Inconvenient Truth (Score:4, Insightful)
A lot of thoughtful conservatives
That's an oxymoron. Like a "smart idiot".
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I've lost count of the number of MAGA stickers I've seen on foreign vehicle brands. The irony is completely lost on those folks.
To be fair, many of those "foreign vehicle brands" are more made in America than their "US brand" counterparts. Particularly in the sedan dept. Somewhat fun place to check your car.
Re: Inconvenient Truth (Score:5, Insightful)
The problem is that the liberals do want to make America great again but they want to make it great again for all Americans, not just the White supremacists.
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That's an important thing. We're sort of in a political stance these days where the other side is seen as literally traitors. Which is absurd. All major parties have the same goals - to improve their country. They just disagree with how to go about it. You rarely see one party calling the other traitors except in failing states.
The MAGA implied quite openly that "Americas Is Not Great", and has the message that everything is really shit right now and if you're not worse off it's because you're being foo
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How was Maga only for white supremacist?
Re: Inconvenient Truth (Score:5, Interesting)
Problem is how closely the White Supremacist and American Nationalist movements have attached themselves to the slogan these days. It is also closely attached to Trump who is a known racist and whose ideal great America is a vision from the 40's and 50's when racism was an accepted part of life. While other politicians have used very close phrases to give their parties or the country a focus, Trump has actually trademarked MAGA as his property attached to his beliefs and philosophies and those are capitalist, authoritarian and racist at their core. In my humble opinion, that is. You can hold your own view of the matter, of course. (in other words, you're not going to convince me otherwise, that MAGA is an apolitical slogan that the Democrats can also take up with no repercussions from the Right.)
How many are true believers? (Score:5, Interesting)
It is possible that Dear Leader is about to be punked by teenagers just like his silly rally in Tulsa.
What will the forbidden topics be? (Score:2)
Moderation will mean there are forbidden topics, though being a Trump concept, I'm sure the list of forbidden topics will be bizarre and at some points completely arbitrary.
Re:What will the forbidden topics be? (Score:5, Funny)
Maybe he'll get himself banned on his own thing.
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Now that would be funny.
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The trolling will be glorious.
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Absolutely. The prodding in the first few weeks to test the moderation will be the stuff of interwebz legends.
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Even if it is not about Trump directly it will have to echo or reinforce Trumps position on any subject.
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Then perhaps you should sign up to provide the counter argument without trolling and test this capacity for speech verses bannings.
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Imagine getting some cockwomble so upset that they spend all their time making new accounts that are almost your handle, and posting that sort of nonsense in an effort to troll.
Slashdot should have some kind of hall of fame for that.
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I think there were achievements for a while. Generally a stupid idea, but I'd be in favour of having one for that.
Great (Score:2)
I'm looking forward to Ilhan Omar and AOC having accounts!
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They are both welcome there. Unlike liberal echo chambers like Twitter, truth social accepts a diversity of viewpoints. Liberals do not like diversity though. They are authoritarian. So you are not going to like this. Back to CNN!
Somehow I thing the statements:
the platform aims to distinguish itself through its content moderation philosophy, with the website calling it "America's 'Big Tent' social media platform that encourages an open, free, and honest global conversation without discriminating against political ideology."
and
Even so, Nunes previously told Fox Business the company will have content moderation to ensure it remains a "family-friendly" space.
shows that they intend to keep out anything they deem not "family friendly;" most likely meaning not "Trump family" friendly. The proof will be in how they react to all he trolling that will go on. My guess is the ban hammer will swing hard left most of the time, pausing just to wack at science when it rears its head..
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The TOS allows any post that is filthy or offensive to be eliminated. It sounds like just another woke website where you will be censored for using the term sq*w.
Considering they are likely to find anything that doesn't exalt their Great Orange Man offensive it would not surprise me to see them shutdown discussions becasue someone was offended.
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I'm pretty sure that by "family friendly", they mean the exact same thing that everyone else ordinarily understands it to mean.
Of all the things to read into, you kinda picked a weird term to fuss over.
I think it is more likely that they will ultimately say that the people who are presenting views that don't align with theirs are spreading misinformation, and as such does not fulfill their criteria for "honest communication"
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I'm pretty sure that by "family friendly", they mean the exact same thing that everyone else ordinarily understands it to mean.
Considering all the screaming over what is taught in schools and to ban books, I doubt "family friendly" means the same thing to the right as it does the rest of the population.
Of all the things to read into, you kinda picked a weird term to fuss over.
I think it is more likely that they will ultimately say that the people who are presenting views that don't align with theirs are spreading misinformation, and as such does not fulfill their criteria for "honest communication"
Yea. Same shit, different bag...
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There's no point in speculation, since people are inevitably going to try the limits of this thing and then we'll see whether they're hypocrites or not.
Or perhaps how smart they are. Every site reserves the right to moderate content, but kicking people off is kind of performative when you have your hands on the controls of the social media machinery. You kick people off to be *seen* kicking them off. If you want them to disappear you can simply turn off their attention spigot.
8000 sockpuppets (Score:3)
The App Store has over 8000 glowing reviews and 4.8/5 positive reviews for a site that has never worked. Truth socialists!!
Censorship (Score:3, Insightful)
"Even so, Nunes previously told Fox Business the company will have content moderation to ensure it remains a "family-friendly" space."
I deny your censorship and substitute my own...
Named after Pravda? (Score:3)
It's rather creepy that Trump's new communication channel to his fans is named after Pravda, the Russian propaganda channel. (Pravda is Russian for Truth)
Free advertising for Trump (Score:2)
It's no wonder it's top of the App Store, given the wall-to-wall free publicity it's received from the media. That kind of publicity is worth billions.
The irony is that much of the free publicity is coming from outlets that clearly hate Trump.
Trump business model requires a liberal audience (Score:5, Insightful)
This will be successful in direct proportion to the number of non-Trump-supporters it reaches. That includes, if provocative Trump twits are repeated by major media.
Trump's business model is to say provocative things at liberals (as he defines them) and bask in the adulation of his fans as the liberals listen to him (the way they do not listen to his fans) and respond with outrage. Liberals' every shriek is music to their ears.
As long as his words only reach his followers, he can't be bothered to say anything; he hasn't for a year. He claims to be the actual, rightful president, but has issued no opinions on what "his" executive branch should be doing about Ukraine. Or how to fight inflation. His followers can't be bothered asking, either. I tried leaving several comments in Fox News comment stews about "what's his position on Ukraine", and got replies like 'why should he bother?'
This is your chance to save your time, and "Pull an Ayn Rand" on Trump: just don't think of him. At all.
Haven't had much luck (Score:2)
Because we need more social media... (Score:2)
Social media platforms is the last thing we need more of. We need more of these these less than we need more 7x24 âoenews-tainmentâ cable channels.
Trump would still be banned (Score:3, Interesting)
To be cleared Apple is not taking a moral stand here. Apple is a corporation they have less than no morality. But the combination of bad press and the risk of lawsuits means that if Trump or his sycophants start openly calling for violence again they're going to drop the ban Hammer really fast.
So none of these Free speech platforms are actually going to be what they say they are. If they had any balls they would stay off the Apple app store and distribute their app as a side loaded Android app.
But they know anyone who's dense enough to follow Donald Trump after the shit show that was his presidency and his handling of the coronavirus pandemic, with his crowning achievement being a literal attempt to overthrow the US democracy, that if after all that you still stand by Donald Trump there is no way in hell you're going to side load an Android app. You'd be more likely to see the monkeys flying out of my ass compile the Linux kernel. To be fair one of those monkeys is an mcse...
Sure, go ahead... (Score:3)
Sure, go ahead and sign up for that and watch yourself be added to some government watchlist by the end of the week. No thank you! I won't touch this even with someone else's ten-foot pole.
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They didn't build their own. They used Mastodon.
Re:ðY they built their own! (Score:4, Insightful)
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And even better, it's all about truth, nothing but the truth! Everything you'll ever read on it is truth. Because each post is called a "truth" whether it is or not. Take that twitter and your non-truth tweets!
It's quite ingenious branding, even more insidious than twitter and facebook.
Re:ðY they built their own! (Score:5, Funny)
This started when someone said âoego build your ownâ
If you build it, they will dumb.
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This started when someone said âoego build your ownâ
If you build it, they will dumb.
A mod point! My kingdom for a mod point!!!!
+1 funniest thing I have seen all day.
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No. Nothing about the man is brilliant.
Well, except his tanning spray, you can see that from space.