Overview: This article explores the manifesto and agenda that Trump’s media company, TMTG, states Truth Social will adhere to.
When Truth Social starts later this quarter, firm CEO Devin Nunes told Fox Business that the Trump Media & Technology Group social media site would already have strict content filtering methods in place to ensure it is a “family-friendly” online community.
Trump’s Truth Social is slated to be up and running by the end of the first quarter of 2022, according to both Nunes and former President Donald Trump. The company is on pace, according to Nunes, who spoke to Fox Business.
Truth Social has been recently launched check our guide to 👉 How to create a new account on Truth Social – Sign Up / Login to Truth Social
Devin Nunes is all in on Truth Social- says he’s “still doing public service”
However, officials participating in the platform’s final phases told Fox Business that they expect malicious actors to target the site and try to “flood” it with “illegal content,” especially during and immediately after its formal launch.
TMTG is teaming with Hive, a San Francisco-based Series D start-up that delivers automated solutions for interpreting photos, videos, and text content using cloud-based artificial intelligence. Hive’s technology automates the moderation of video, image, text, and audio content.
In an exclusive interview with Fox Business, Nunes stated, “We want to be extremely family-friendly, we want this to be a very safe environment, and we’re focusing on making sure there’s no unlawful information on the site.”
“Hive has a great track record in this, and they have been good to work with,” Nunes continued. “They are very helpful for our team and because of their experience, I think they’re helping to craft the right spot for us.”
He added,”We want to be the most family-friendly site.”
Hive comes to the aid of Truth Social
Trump’s Truth Social will leverage Hive’s AI model to enable content moderation for postings, according to co-founder and CEO Kevin Guo of Fox Business. This will ensure that sexually explicit content, as well as posts that involve violence, bullying, hate speech, and spam, never make it to the platform.
“TMTG has taken a proactive approach,” Guo told Fox Business. “Moderation has always been important to them. They’ve given this a lot of thought.”
Following the Capitol incident on Jan. 6, 2021, Hive was instrumental in assisting conservative social media company Parler in developing its content control methods in order to get reinstated into Apple’s App Store.
Reddit, Giphy, Yik Yak, OnlyFans, Omegle, Josh, IRL, Yubo, Tango, and others are among Hive’s many clients.
“Our stance, unlike other companies, we, by definition, are doing a net positive,” Guo said. “I don’t care who you are, if you want to make your community a safer place, you should be given the tools to do so.”
When asked about working with clients that some deem controversial, Guo said that there “are a few things where we should probably put aside our differences and just agree that we need to solve this problem.”
“We commit ourselves to being a very neutral ground in that sense,” Guo said “If a partner wants to use us, and we think they are doing a good job, using our models well, and putting in good-faith moderation, we’re going to keep supporting them, no matter what the external pressures may be.”
“Hive has been working with Truth Social for several months”
Chairman of the House Intelligence Committee Adam Schiff, D-Calif., listens as ranking member Rep. Devin Nunes of California speaks as U.S. Ambassador to the European Union Gordon Sondland testifies in front of the House Intelligence Committee on Capitol Hill. Hive has been working with TMTG for “several months,” according to Hi Guo.
“From the very beginning of product design, they have had moderation as a core concept that they’ve been building around, so, our integration with them certainly is not one they have put in last minute, or after the fact,” Guo said. “They have been very thoughtful and very proactive with this, and when they launch, moderation will be fully in place on day one.”
Guo said Hive’s technology has the ability to identify content like “nudity, drugs, violence, hate speech, spam and bullying.”
Hive to aid Truth Social be ‘Family Friendly’
“This is not political,” he said. “These are not things that are left or right or have any political baggage,” Guo said. “When you think about these bigger companies, what they have put in place around things like misinformation, what they deem that to be, for instance, that’s their prerogative.”
He added, “Our moderation is based on these core concepts that, we think, are universal.”
Trump’s Truth Social will follow a moderation strategy based on Hive’s key concepts, according to Guo, who wants to “ensure” that they can “detect this type of content and proactively prevent it from reaching their users.”
“They are not doing things like trying to censor any political talk—we don’t have models for that or models for misinformation,” he said. “We focus on a problem that is more objective.”
Nunes doubled down on that point, reminding that Truth Social will be “open for all ideas, all political debate from the left to the right.”
“We’re not going to censor anybody because they have a different opinion about, for example, a COVID vaccine,” Nunes said. “That is what the open internet is all about—it should be for the free flow of debate and ideas all over the globe, so that people can learn from one another and debate with one another.”
Nunes added,”And society should be better for it if it is working properly.”
Controversy regarding section 230 strikes again
Right-wing critics have contended that if tech companies restrict conservative opinions, they should no longer be protected under Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act.
The clause has played a key role in the emergence of today’s social media behemoths, allowing not only Internet service providers, but also Google, Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, and others, to be shielded from liability in most situations for content uploaded on their platforms by third parties.
Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act currently states that “no provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider.”
Trump’s Truth Social will be on the go by President’s Day 2022
Nunes, who was a vocal critic of Big Tech while serving in Congress in California’s 22nd district, was asked about Section 230 now that he is the CEO of a media firm.
“It is the law of the land,” Nunes said. “Clearly, in the past, I’d express my frustration with it—mainly, at what point does a website or a tech company become a publisher?”
Big tech corporations like Twitter, Facebook, Google, and Instagram have been chastised by Nunes for “becoming editors” and for “selectively enforcing their terms of service.”
“The bottom line is that any changes that would be made to Section 230 in the future, we’re not at all worried about because we’re not going to be in that kind of business,” Nunes said.
Nunes explained that Truth Social’s content filtering efforts are “all about protecting the client and the user. We want people to have a good experience on the platform, and they are not going to have a good experience if there is illegal activity on the platform, so that is the real necessity for this,” Nunes said.
“We’re eyes wide-opened here,” Nunes added.
Nunes joined TMTG as CEO in December, after serving in the House of Representatives for over two decades.
Truth Social raised $10bn from institutional investors
In October, Trump Media & Technology Group made its debut. Last month, the company announced that the partner has secured $1 billion in cash from institutional investors.
The plan for TMTG is to merge with the publicly traded Digital World Acquisition Corp., a special purpose acquisition company with the express objective of acquiring a private company and bringing it public.
Truth Social is available for pre-order in the App Store, while it is not yet available to the general public.
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Truth Social to dance to Apple and Google’s tunes
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