Former president Donald Trump and his team declared Wednesday night that they would soon launch a “media powerhouse” that would help them triumph in their long-running war against Big Tech. But within hours, pranksters found what appeared to be an unreleased test version and posted a picture of a defecating pig to the “donaldjtrump” account.
The site has since been pulled offline — evidence that Trump is likely to face a daunting challenge in building an Internet business that can stand on its own.
It is good to see that Trump is upholding the long tradition of poorly secured conservative social media networks.
There is one other problem with Trump’s social media platform besides how easy it was to deface.
It appears a pretense for another Trump scheme.
Trump’s Social Media Platform Is Really A Stock Scam.
Matt Levine described in Bloomberg Opinion how Trump’s SPAC scam works:
So if Donald Trump announced “hey I’m gonna do a social media company, buy some stock,” people would buy some stock. And then he’d get a lot of money. And then if the social media platform did not end up being profitable — as I cannot imagine it would be! — then he would, uh, still have that money? And if the social media platform did not end up being launched — if Trump and his crack team of technologists just couldn’t actually build a well-functioning online social network — then he would, uh, still have that money? And if there was no crack team of technologists at all, if nobody even tried to build the social media platform — then you see where I am going with this right?
It is the perfect Trump scam. Trump unveils a social media company that may or may not ever be launched. Trump sells stock in the idea of the social media company. Trump has no actual obligation to launch a social media company, or for the company ever to be profitable.
Trump gets to keep the money.
It is all a con. The idea that Donald Trump, a guy who was so cheap that he hired criminals who would work for free, family, and ran a presidential campaign out of his basement would spend the loads of money required to launch a social media company correctly is absurd.
It is a cash grab, and people shouldn’t treat Trump’s “Truth” as anything other than legalized grift.