Trump ‘moving forward’ with plan to start his own social media platform

Earlier this month, Trump senior adviser Jason Miller said the former president would create his own platform “in probably about two to three months.”

“And this is something that I think will be the hottest ticket in social media. It’s going to completely redefine the game, and everybody is going to be waiting and watching to see what exactly President Trump does,” Miller told Fox News.

Miller didn’t go into details but said Trump has been having “high-powered meetings” at Mar-a-Lago with various teams regarding the venture, and that “numerous companies” have approached the former Republican president.

“This new platform is going to be big,” Miller said at the time, predicting Trump will draw “tens of millions of people.”

Permanently banned

The president was permanently banned on social media the day after the Capitol riot, with platforms citing the security risks to Joe Biden’s inauguration in light of the insurrection at the Capitol. The ban, however, came only after months of Trump repeatedly posting false claims about the integrity of the 2020 election, which created a frenzy among his base.

“The shocking events of the last 24 hours clearly demonstrate that President Donald Trump intends to use his remaining time in office to undermine the peaceful and lawful transition of power to his elected successor, Joe Biden,” Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg said in a statement after the riot. “The current context is now fundamentally different, involving use of our platform to incite violent insurrection against a democratically elected government,” he wrote.

It was the most aggressive action that Facebook and Twitter had ever taken against Trump, who more than a decade ago embraced the immediacy and scale of Twitter to rally loyalists, castigate enemies and feed false conspiracy theories to his followers.

Many liberal voices criticized the social media giants for enabling the president to freely spread falsehoods about election integrity and other issues, which ultimately served to stir up Trump’s supporters who desperately wanted him to remain in office.

Is it censorship?

Republicans, on the other hand, have continued to claim the ban on Trump amounted to illegal censorship and an infringement on free speech rights, despite terms and conditions by the platforms that prohibit misinformation and threats of violence.

“We’re all aware of Big Tech’s ever-increasing censorship of conservative voices and their commitment to serve the radical progressive agenda,” said Rep. Bob Latta of Ohio, during a five-hour virtual hearing of the House Energy and Commerce Committee last Thursday, in which the CEOs of the Big Three social media companies faced questions about their role in inciting the mob.

Notably, U.S. law respects a private company’s right to do business with whomever it chooses in spite of the Constitution’s guarantee of free speech, according to legal experts.

Team Trump frustrated

Frustration over the ban has been building recently inside Trump’s team due to the inability to post anything that features the 45th president speaking.

Just this week Facebook took down a video of Trump being interviewed by his daughter-in-law Lara Trump and posted to her page, demonstrating that the ban would continue to be enforced even as the former president has no access to an account.

“This guidance applies to all campaign accounts and Pages, including Team Trump, other campaign messaging vehicles on our platforms, and former surrogates,” said the email, which was later shared on Instagram by Eric Trump.

In a preemptive move, Facebook sent an email to Trump officials warning that any content posted to Facebook and Instagram “in the voice of President Trump is not currently allowed on our platforms (including new posts with President Trump speaking),” adding that such content would “be removed if posted, resulting in additional limitations on accounts that posted it.”

“Hi folks,” a Facebook representative named Katelyn wrote in an email to Lara Trump with the subject line “Content Removal,” according to Fox News.

“We are reaching out to let you know that we removed content from Lara Trump’s Facebook Page that featured President Trump speaking,” the rep said. “In line with the block we placed on Donald Trump’s Facebook and Instagram accounts, further content posted in the voice of Donald Trump will be removed and result in additional limitations on the accounts.”

Lara Trump posted the email from Facebook to her Instagram page.

“What they did to Lara was disgraceful,” a Trump source told Fox News. “They’re shutting down our voices, anything to do with Trump.”

“It’s not good what’s going on. They are trying to completely silence us,” the source continued, according to Fox News.

The source added: “It’s not going to work out all too well, though, because we’re firing away and starting up our own stuff right now.”

Where things stand

Following the Capitol siege, the bans by Facebook, Twitter and other social media companies left Trump without his immediate ability to rile up his supporters with more misinformation that could lead to additional violence during his final days in office.

“In this moment, the risk to our democracy was too big that we felt we had to take the unprecedented step of what is an indefinite ban, and I’m glad we did,” Facebook’s Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg told Reuters in an interview.

The former president has been without his favorite method of communicating ever since.

“The shocking events of the last 24 hours clearly demonstrate that President Donald Trump intends to use his remaining time in office to undermine the peaceful and lawful transition of power to his elected successor, Joe Biden,” Zuckerberg wrote. But by that time, five people were dead at the U.S. Capitol.

Trump publicly hinted at the recent Conservative Political Action Conference he’s considering another run for president in 2024, but privately has said his former Vice President Mike Pence would not be a part of the ticket.

Trump is also building a political structure that would serve as a campaign foundation should he decide to run again, including an existing political action committee, Save America, that accepts donations up to $5,000 per individual. A new super PAC, which would accept unlimited donations, is also planned.