Former President Donald Trump's ambitions of creating a "media powerhouse" to challenge the likes of Facebook (NASDAQ: FB) and Twitter (NYSE: TWTR) have hit a few snags. After a wild week of trading, the former president was forced to contend with his social media platform being hacked and his special purpose acquisition company's (SPAC) considerable value.
If it looks like Twitter and tweets like it, then it probably is Twitter, as the adage goes. While the app hasn't gone live, hackers and reporters from the Washington Post gained access to a test version. To put it bluntly, what they found was that Truth Social looked and tweeted an awful lot like Twitter.
Instead of tweets and re-tweets, users post truths and re-truths. In place of a news feed, users have a "truth feed." Aside from the cloned aspects, the site was deeply broken and bereft of security. Hackers associated with Anonymous had little difficulty locating and gaining access to the site.
The former president's ambitions stem from his sweeping bans across many social media platforms and potentially Parler's banning and subsequent limited reinstatement. While marketed as an alternative to Facebook and Twitter emphasizing "free speech," the site's terms of service are considerably more restrictive and vague, such as a ban on content that "disparage(s), tarnish(s), or otherwise harm(s), in our opinion, us and/or the Site."
Currently, there doesn't appear to be much on offer from Truth Social that would make it competitive against either Facebook or Twitter. Given the site's exposed security problems and questionable design, Truth Social could even prove to be a privacy nightmare for users.
Despite a surge in prices last week, reality may be setting in for Digital World Acquisition Corp (NASDAQ: DWAC). The SPAC intended to take Trump Media & Technology Group public. Iceberg Research tweeted on Monday that the SPAC was risky, notably due to Trump's leverage over the company. DWAC shares slid 27% on Tuesday by late afternoon.