A spokesman for Donald Trump announced on Fox News “#MediaBuzz” that Trump will be returning to social media with his own platform. It appears that the platform will be released in two or three months. No further information has been released other than that the new platform “is going to be big”.
Personally, I’m not surprised that Trump wants to make his own social media platform. As you may remember, he was permanently suspended from Twitter on January 8, 2021, days after the riot at the U.S. Capitol. In a blog post, Twitter stated the reason for the permanent suspension was “due to the risk of further incitement of violence.” Facebook also suspended Trump’s account for roughly the same reason.
It is possible that Trump (and whomever is helping to create his new social media platform) believe that he would be safe there to post whatever her wants to. I cannot imagine what his own platform would consider egregious enough for them to decide to suspend Trump’s account.
The trick is finding a web-hosting company that will accept Trump’s new social media platform. Gab, (another right-wing social media platform), has a history of having its web hosting company drop them. A quick look at Gab’s Wikipedia page lists that Apple declined Gab’s submission of its app to the App Store in 2016. Google removed Gab’s app from its Play Store for violating policy against hate speech.
In 2018, PayPal, GoDaddy, and Medium terminated their relationship with Gab one day after the the Pittsburg synagogue shooting (and after posts by the shooter were found on Gab). Later that day, Gab’s hosting provider, Joylent, gave them a limited time to move out before it terminated service. In 2018, Gab started using Epik as a domain registrar, and may potentially be using Cloudflare (a company that provides content delivery and DDoS mitigation). In 2019, Amazon Web Services ceased Gab’s fundraising site due to Amazon’s policy on hateful conduct.
Parler (another right-wing social media platform) has also faced difficulties. BuzzFeed News reported in January of 2021 that Amazon suspended Parler from Amazon Web Services. The reason for the suspension was because Amazon became unconvinced that Parler could effectively moderate calls for violence and hate speech.
NPR reported that Parler sued Amazon and asked a federal judge to force Amazon to restore Parler’s web-hosting service. The judge declined to do so. Engadget later reported that Parler found web-hosting with Epik – the same company that hosts Gab.
It might be possible for Trump to launch his own social media platform. If he does, I suspect it would pull like-minded users from Twitter, Facebook, Gab and Parler. However, unless Trump also creates his own web-hosting company – there will always be a chance that his social media platform could be taken offline.