Trump-backed Twitter alternative Truth Social suffers 93% drop in downloads

NEW YORK — The truth is hurting.

Truth Social, Donald Trump’s newly launched social media platform being pushed as an alternative to Twitter, has reportedly suffered a significant decline in new users since its bumpy launch last month. According to The Wrap, the app that rolled out on President’s Day has seen a 93% decline in downloads since launching on Feb. 22.

From the start, many would-be Truth Social users experienced trouble signing up for the platform, which included getting error notices or being directed to long waitlists.

Trump himself has posted only one message on Truth Social, which according to information cited by The Wrap, has seen only 1.2 million downloads. More than 870,000 of those came in the platform’s opening week.

The 45th president was a prominent Twitter user until that platform banned him following the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol during an event Trump promoted on social media.

Illinois representative Adam Kinzinger, who sits on the bipartisan committee investigating the insurrection, predicted right away that Truth Social would fail.

“Social media sadly thrives on conflict,” he tweeted on Feb. 21. “#truthsocial (which is ironically named) will be boring and fail, because it will be all Trump-fed drones.”

Kinzinger also asked Trump supporters who willingly left Twitter in favor of Truth Social to remain absent from the mainstream platform that has upset right-wingers who feel the outlet’s fact-checking measures and rules of conduct are biased against their agenda.

In its inaugural week, Truthsocial.com fans including GOP representatives Marjorie Taylor Green and Lauren Boebert helped the platform record 6 million visits. That count has reportedly fallen to fewer than 2 million visits per week. The Daily Beast reported earlier this month that the former president has become increasingly frustrated with Truth Social’s inability to gain traction. He has reportedly asked things like “What the f—k is going on” with the fledgling project.

Former GOP congressman and dairy farmer Devin Nunes is the CEO of Trump Media & Technology Group, which operates Truth Social. He expected the site to be up and running in late March.

In May 2021, the former president launched a blog called “From the Desk of Donald J. Trump.” It lasted less than a month.