The First Casualty of Truth Social is… Copyright Law?
Former Reality TV Host and US President, Donald Trump has talked a lot about launching his own social media platform since being kicked off Twitter in the wake of his failed insurrection. Now, according to Donald Trump Jnr. the first post has gone up on their new social platform – and boy does it look a lot like Twitter.
The Trump service is called ‘Truth Social’ and is promises to deliver the sort of deeply thoughtful insight and analysis from Trump that is currently only available at Gab, where the former president is still free to spread his lies, grifts and gratuitous self promotion.
On the 16th of February, Donald Trump Jnr. shared a screen shot of what he said is the first post on the new platform by his dad,. Apart from changing a couple of icons, it appears to be a direct imitation of the formatting and style of Twitter.
While the Twitter interface is quite generic in nature, the early screen shots from Truth Social seem to be a shameless rip off of the global social media platform. Twitter will need to assess whether to take action against the Trumps for Copyright infringement or make other claims such as passing off or trade mark infringement.
Twitter will have to take a view if it is willing to give Trump the sort of publicity that would go with taking legal action, or whether it is should let Donald Trump launch his sad knock off without interference.
But will the service ever launch, and, if it does, will it last? Truth Social is likely to come under heavy scrutiny from hosting services, cloud providers and regulators if it becomes a source for disinformation, fringe right wing theories and promotion of violence and hatred.
Twitter might decide it is just better to stand back and do nothing, rather than to add fuel to the Trump dumpster fire. The costs associated with running Truth Social are likely to be high for the Trumps, and the challenges myriad. Twitter might think it more prudent to grab some popcorn and sit back and watch it burn…
