"anyone gonna do Truth Social?" Topic

I signed up and have 400,000 ahead of me on the waiting list. My intent is to keep FB until they kick me off, but to do my best to make Truth an attractive option. Right now I am contemplating doing the Splintered Lands, and probably something on AWI minis and gaming and history.

I don't anticipate doing much politics on Truth (I assume many there will already think like I do). It'd be preachin gto the choir.

We badly need a more balanced and fair social forum; hope this one becomes such.

hope this one becomes such

Probably not when you think who is behind it.

I hope that it does also. I already tried Parlour and it was not interesting to me. I have several groups on MeWe that are hobby related but while there are millions of people there, it does not compare to FB with a billion, so I remain there too.

I hope that Truth works out. FB has sanctioned several groups I admin, one is a WWII German Heavy Tank group and they did not like the German flag draped over the WWII German heavy tank as an air recognition symbol. I understand not everyone likes that flag, but historical photos are what they are, not what we like them to be.

Mike Bunkermeister Creek
Bunker Talk blog

Yes. I had the same underwhelming experience with Parler. If an alternative to FB can be developed, that will be a great contribution to our society.

Don't even know what it is.

Have no idea what you are talking about.

It is a new social platform backed by Donald Trump. Supposed to be like Facebook but more tolerant of diverse views.

"Truth Social is America's "Big Tent" social media platform that encourages an open, free, and honest global conversation without discriminating against political ideology."

I'll wait to see what happens. I'm on MeWe but it's lots of "oh look what I did" and not much of anything else. FB was same thing. I actually find more "conversations" on forums than any "social media" app.

Yeah, I'm looking for a place to do a lot of organized content, and then invite folks to interact with and about it. Dunno if that is going to be what Truth is or not?

When it becomes available for android.

Putting Trump & honest in the same place doesn't ring much of 'truth' to me.

a new social platform backed by Donald Trump. Supposed to be like Facebook but more tolerant of diverse views.

Lol!

Trump and diverse views? Funny.

LOL. No, when I need to read I'll look elsewhere.

The vast majority of my gaming and re-enactment stuff is organised via FB these days, and it works just fine, even if there is the odd wierd moderation decision.

Good luck to Mr Trump in his latest venture .

Well, if it is not open to all views, I shall not participate. But we KNOW Facebook is biased. The new forum deserves a fair trial.

Question, though, for the anti-Trumpers posting here: if someone (i.e. me) had wargame or historical-related content posted on Truth, would you go there to read it (assuming it is otherwise interesting to you) regardless of DJT? I hope so.

Ah Pravda!

Yeah, I picked up on that irony as well.

I could and perhaps should do a blog, instead, but I really want to support an alternate to FB and also maybe draw in readers who might never go to a specialized blog.

I wouldn't but then I wouldn't pick up on the vast majority of FB content on wargaming either. I participate in a few (non FB) groups, watch a few more for interesting/useful content and follow links to blogs & personal websites were the interest takes me.

I find 'social' media anything but that and the complete lack of any form of organisation to the content on these platforms makes them entirely useless to me.

The assumption that you could have a 'broad church' discussion on ANY SM platform is laughable.

Doc, an alternate to FB would have to be open to a wider range of ideas than Truth is clearly meant to allow. It serves one purpose; to support Trump's political goals.

At the moment, Trump's little effort is having real problems in operation, they can't even reliably sign on new followers, and they collapsed for 13 hours immediately after launch. Thank heaven they have Devin Nunez to sort everything out with his deft hand at tech.

As for anti-Trumpers going there for any reason, even if it did function, that is pure wishful thinking. It will become a hermetically sealed echo chamber with even less diversity. We'll see how long a poster critical of Trump lasts before being silenced. It isn't meant to be a balanced site, as you well know.

+1 GildasFacit

IF it is indeed limited to followers of Trump, there is no point to it and I shall not participate. But, again, we KNOW Facebook is biased. I read widely among the conservative and populist community and believe that we are generally committed to free thought and expression. That statement may conflict with the Progressive narrative but it is so. If Progs really believe in free expression and thought, let them join us in doing that.

If anyone goes to my FB account, they will see, yes, lots of conservative and populist posts, BUT also an openness to contrary arguments. I have many lefty friends and some of them regularly come on my FB page to argue with me. Which I welcome. I do not believe I am untypical in that.

As an aside, Truth Social is a Twitter clone using (currently illegally) the source code for Mastadon. It is expressly being built as a free-speech platform though the terms of service contradict that.

Regardless, I don't think it will be a very good platform for gaming stuff since it is Twitter like. No groups, limited post size etc.

Also, lots of red flags around security and privacy, if that matters to you…

Doc, for a group committed to free thought and expression there seems to be a lot of effort to shut down opposing views in local schools, voter rolls, library book acquisition, and acceptance of LGBTQ fellow citizens, not to mention woman's rights, and the works of many artists.

FB has many failings and does need greater regulation, but keeping misinformation, hate speech, and demagogues closely watched or off the platform is not a failure or being biased. An easy case may be made that they have been too lax, and too many wackos have poisoned the well in the US.

Heh, Repiqueone, you never fail to confirm: "keeping misinformation, hate speech, and demagogues closely watched or off the platform is not a failure or being biased." RRRIIIGGHHHTTTT!!!

As to your first paragraph, I thought we weren't supposed to play "whataboutism"?

"I don't think it will be a very good platform for gaming stuff since it is Twitter like. No groups, limited post size etc." This is concerning, yes, and may be disqualifying for me.

To answer a direct question with a direct answer, no, I would not click on wargaming links leading to Truth Social. Not much point in trying to describe all the reasons why that is the case, so I'll leave it at that.

I will give Truth Social the exact same time and energy I give Facebook and Twitter. That seems fair to me and the platforms. Just like I spend the same amount of time watching CNN and Fox News.

The man who reads nothing at all is better educated than the man who reads nothing but newspapers.

Thomas Jefferson

I'm with you Andrew – Zilch to all of them, can't be fairer than that.

Oh, and I don't read newspapers either – except our local free rag.

Well, yes, Red Tom was right about newspapers, though he financed some that engaged in the worst sort of partisan attacks on Hamilton. Takes one to know one. And I agree that social media fall into the same category.

I've never been on Twitter and if Truth is simply a right-wing equivalent then I shall probably not participate -- though I do think the more alternatives for speech the better.

I'll point out, again, that we got a civil war out of the comprehensive cultural division of the 1850s, when every important institution -- all the churches, for example -- split north and south. If the right is prevented from communicating on existing media, as Repiqueone evidently desires, we WILL create alternates. But then no one is speaking to the other side. Politics is downstream from culture.

I may be wrong but I believe Repiqueone is just against discrimination and hate speech. He always seems up for a good discussion.

"Hate speech" has no intrinsic meaning. It is therefore a tool for suppressing whatever you choose to suppress.

If one were to say that marriage is ONLY to be between a single man and a single woman, is that "hate speech"? Some say so, and want to suppress it.

"Hate Speech" is an artificial construct designed to "freeze", silence and bully people that disagree with you as outlined in:

Rule 13. "Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it." Cut off the support network and isolate the target from sympathy. Go after people and not institutions; people hurt faster than institutions.
Saul Alinsky's Rules for Radicals

It worked for a while silencing people calling them racists, homophobes, fascists, bigots, etc. However, it seems those same people have gotten tired of that BS and are not being silenced or intimidated any more.

Regarding big tech and social media: FYI, the CIA was an early investor in Facebook through their venture capital arm In-Q-Tel and are very aggressive in that role right now.

link

link

If you don't defend speech you disagree with then you are not defending free speech – you know who you are. However, the country you may be residing in may not have a right guaranteed by a law to let you speak freely.

Remember, the price of freedom is constant alertness and willingness to fight back. We have not yet begun to fight and we are ready to pay the price again, whatever it may be.

Wolfhag

"If the right is prevented from communicating on existing media, as Repiqueone evidently desires, we WILL create alternates. But then no one is speaking to the other side. Politics is downstream from culture."

Oh, Doc, what a polemicist you are! No one is preventing the "Right" from using media, it's just that media has rules that certain types of postings trading in provable falsehoods, harmful actions being encouraged, or out and out instilling civic disorder shall have consequences. This is true for both left and right wing views. It just so happens that at the present time the GOP is having a nervous breakdown and such postings are far more frequent from that side of the rainbow. You are being not denied access for being on the right, but for posting messages that are against the very clear rules, starting with outlandish claims that are proven to be false and dangerous.

A speaker on the community stage has responsibilities that he cannot ignore without consequences. It has always been so. The difference now is almost any half-wit can make statements across the world that will cause other half-wits to flock to him. Particularly if he has no moral qualms or ethics and wants only to call attention to himself regardless of the consequences.

Wolfhag, I find it amusing that the only people quoting Alinsky these days are on the right! Fifty years after the man died the right seems to have discovered his " threat" which was simply to organize, communicate, and confront the opposing views that are being used to cause harm in a community.

They think it was the "tricks" of delivery and not the message that was important. They completely miss the point.

I have no FB or Twitter or other major social presence, and so will not sample the new one referenced here either. Interesting looking miniature groups or discussions in those places are never quite interesting enough to make me join social media platforms either. I probably miss some things as a result, but there are lots of great blogs, web pages, and publications with interesting content already.

The "hate speech" concept to which this thread has led certainly does have 'intrinsic meaning', although reasonable people can disagree – and disagree vehemently – about the extent to which this is good, bad, or something in between. The courts disagree about it too, especially in cases where it conflicts with freedom of expression, an older and appropriately cherished right. In Canada, for example, freedom of expression is guaranteed in our Charter of Rights and Freedoms, while hate speech is nevertheless proscribed in the Criminal Code. In other words: clear as mud, and lucrative fodder for the legal profession!

Still, far from being irrelevant, hate speech is an indictable offence in many countries, backed by case law, precedent, and human rights legislation. It is, increasingly, a factor in international law as well. Its first major reference by the UN was in 1965, more than half a century ago.

The keys to prosecution usually include some combination of intent (deliberate as opposed to inadvertent, a nuance that helps distinguish and protect satire, journalism, and entertainment, for example), incitement (mobilizing others, up to and including causation, whether direct or contextual), and the resulting occurrence of legally prohibited acts (e.g., physical violence or discrimination based on race).

There is a mountain of literature on this. But I normally manage to slop on paint and roll dice without bothering with it.

Wolfgang, yes. Free speech forever! Down with censorship under whatever pretense it is attempted.

From Amber Philips' column in the WaPo:

"Trump's newest venture is a rebuttal to what he has called "censorship" from big platforms such as Twitter, but Truth Social's terms and conditions include a sizable but vague list of things you can't post — including anything "false," "indecent," "misleading," "profane" or "otherwise objectionable."

Because the app is a private company, it can kick off whoever it wants for whatever reason, just like Twitter and Facebook can. There's no First Amendment protections."

Some of that is doubtless for the lawyers. And I stopped trusting WaPo years ago, though that statement is likely correct.

Do you apply the "do whatever it wants for whatever reason" to ALL private companies?

Read more carefully, Doc. It says it can " kick off whoever it wants" not do whatever it wants. The statement is accurate. The WAPo is one of the most reputable papers in the US and has been for decades. Accurate assessment of sources is a key skill of historical research. It takes no judgrement at all to believe in nonsense.

Obviously private companies cannot do whatever they want. There are laws and regulations. The do need to be enforced. The trick,lately, is you must defeat the sophistry of some desperate people on these topics.

It's funny how "free speech" is so often defended by people who want to deny the teaching of objective scientific fact and attempt to marginalise or cancel for example (and to steer clear of political choices) those whose sexuality or eating habits they do not approve of.

When book burners tell me they demand the right for free speech I wonder where their irony detector is at.

The criminalization of hate speech is a reasonable check – in the same way that you can pick anyone's pocket, but if you get caught there's a punishment. You can say what you like, but just accept that if you want to incite the mass murder of the people of Madeupland or shout "fire!" in a crowded theatre then you may get punished.

Freedom of speech is not the right to be heard, or the right to be approved of, and it is not consequence-free. You can say it, but you have to live with the results of your freely chosen actions.

we got a civil war out of the comprehensive cultural division of the 1850s

Would that be the "cultural division" of whether one person has the right to have legal ownership of another person's life?

Bravo, 20th Maine!

20th, two excellent postings.

Bob, Bob, you changed "do" to "kick off."

I did not. It is a copy and paste from the original daily article. No edits. As I said, more careful reading would help you in many areas.

Here's the entire article. The section on Truth Social is at the bottom. You will see it is verbatim from my copy and paste.

link

I accept your apology.

Facebook for bigots who lost the argument? Nope. Not for me. I prefer to talk to people of different opinions. I might learn something.

What about this one:
tlbtalk.com
Though it doesn't have Patriot and Freedom, it does have Truth AND Liberty in the name, so it must be better than the Donald's offering huh?