The Trump juggernaut is plowing into the social media world on the strength of $1 billion already invested in the new Trump Media & Technology Group.
The new group will debut a social media platform known as TRUTH Social, which is expected to launch in the first quarter of 2022.
A news release posted on the TMTG website said TMTG and Digital World Acquisition Corp. announced Saturday that Digital World Acquisition Corp. “has entered into subscription agreements for $1 billion in committed capital to be received upon consummation of their business combination (the ‘PIPE’) from a diverse group of institutional investors.”
As noted by Fox Business, the aim is to take the company shares available for public buyers.
“TMTG’s plan is to become a publicly listed company through a merger with the publicly traded Digital World Acquisition Corp., a special purpose acquisition company whose sole purpose is to acquire a private company and take it public,” Fox reported.
And if it succeeds, as Fox noted, Trump stands to add to his already considerable personal fortune.
In the release, Trump, who is chairman of TMTG, stated that the $1 billion investment “sends an important message to Big Tech that censorship and political discrimination must end. America is ready for TRUTH Social, a platform that will not discriminate on the basis of political ideology.”
“As our balance sheet expands, TMTG will be in a stronger position to fight back against the tyranny of Big Tech,” Trump said.
Trump was banned from Twitter, Facebook, and other sites in the aftermath of the Capitol incursion. In a statement on TMTG’s website, he explained his rationale for launching the new platform.
“America has always been a nation of smart, spirited, and independent people who take pride in thinking for themselves. We admire those who aren’t afraid to speak their minds or go against the tide. Yet suddenly, we find ourselves being censored and dictated to by a small group of self-righteous scolds and self-appointed arbiters of what everyone else is allowed to think, say, share, and do,” Trump wrote.
“Nowhere is this censorship more dangerous and brazen than on social media, the public square of our times. We have seen renowned medical doctors being banned from platforms for contradicting ‘health authorities’ or questioning the political narrative of the moment,” he wrote.
Trump noted that social media bans have censored information that was in the public interest.
“We’ve seen scientists blacklisted for sharing evidence that the pandemic began in a Chinese lab. We’ve seen vital reporting about Joe and Hunter Biden’s foreign business dealings—information that voters needed and deserved to hear—ruthlessly suppressed and erased from the internet just weeks before a presidential election,” he wrote.
“The corruption of these platforms cannot be ignored. We have fallen far down the ‘slippery slope’ of censorship in our country, and the topics that Americans are increasingly forbidden to debate are among the most important issues of our day,” Trump wrote
Trump wrote that social media’s “wildly aggressive censorship and ‘cancel-culture’ is not only un-American—it has direct, real-world consequences.”
Censorship has eroded trust, he wrote, by creating a world in which questioning to arrive at the truth is no longer allowed.
“Yet the silencing and cancellation also affects our country in more subtle, but equally destructive, ways. How many Americans no longer trust a word they hear from their leaders, media, or public health officials, because the one thing they know for certain is that they are not getting the full story?” he wrote.
Trump wrote that democracy shrivels when voices are suppressed.
“The new age of censorship is a disaster for our country. Things were far better in the days when we had our debates fiercely and openly, and then we could move forward together, as Americans, with both sides knowing that their voice, and their best arguments, had been heard,” he wrote.
Trump wrote that his platform is for all viewpoints.’
“To take on Big Tech censorship, we are creating a “Big Tent’ platform: Truth Social. We are inviting people of all political stripes, and all different viewpoints, to come and participate once again in the great American debate. That’s what our country is supposed to be about,” he wrote.
“Unlike with the Big Tech platforms, there will be no shadow-banning, throttling, demonetizing, or messing with algorithms for political manipulation. We will not be treating users like lab rats for social experiments, or labeling alternative views as ‘disinformation.’ We will not silence our fellow citizens simply because they might be wrong—or worse, because we think that Americans ‘can’t handle the truth,’” Trump wrote.
“In the end, a small number of powerful people who all think the same and wish to silence anyone who thinks differently cannot be trusted to control almost every major media, technology, and entertainment company in America,” Trump wrote.
“I am determined to break their chokehold over the voices of the American People—not just for myself and my own supporters, but for the United States of America!”
This article appeared originally on The Western Journal.
