The "disastrous launch" of former president Donald Trump's social media app — Truth Social — shows it shouldn't be trusted with people's private information, according to one expert.
“The basic thing they needed to actually get right to get someone in the door, they couldn’t get right,” privacy researcher Bill Fitzgerald told the Washington Post, adding the “ineptitude of the rollout" could be a warning of future issues ahead.
“There is no better sign of a rushed implementation than the fact that you can’t onboard anybody," Fitzgerald said. "So I’m hard-pressed to understand why anyone would trust that these people would keep their information safe.”
WaPo technology reporter Drew Harwell notes that Truth Social "has been almost entirely inaccessible" since it launched on Monday, including a 13-hour outage and a 300,000-person waitlist. Some people on the waiting list reportedly are going backward, with one prospective user falling from No. 215,406 on Monday night to No. 295,046 on Tuesday afternoon.
Even Trump supporters such as attorney Jenna Ellis were mocking the app's rollout, Harwell reported, noting that Trump was "a longtime critic of how Democrats debuted healthcare.gov" but is "now facing a bungled website launch of his own."
"The site had been heralded for months as the crown jewel of Trump’s post-presidential business ambitions, with allies pledging it would revolutionize social media and take down the mainstream social networks where Trump is banned," according to Harwell. "But early glimpses at Truth Social suggest its offerings are almost identical to what Twitter and other sites have offered for years — except tweets are called 'Truths,' and retweets 'ReTruths.' The site’s early struggles also have fueled doubts that Trump’s company will be able to handle tougher long-term challenges, such as policing for dangerous content and guarding against cyberattacks."
