The app of former U.S. President Donald Trump True Social's social network is still not approved for distribution to Google Play Store due to an inefficient content upgrade system, announced by a representative of Google on Tuesday.
This delay has a negative impact on the development of the social network. Android-based smartphones account for about 40% of the American market, and without Google Play Store, that part of the users cannot download the True Social on their devices. The True Social application is currently available only in Apple App Store.
"On 19 August, we notified the True Social of several violations of the Standard Rules in their annex and reiterated that the existence of effective systems to modernize user content was a condition for launching any application on Google Play. We also expressed the Truth Social Concern over violations of the Play Store policy prohibiting content such as physical threats and incitement to violence," Google stated. "Truth Social sent a response letter last week, in which we acknowledged our comments and reported that we were working to address these problems."
True Social allowed Trump to reappear on social media more than a year after he was blocked on Twitter, Facebook* and YouTube due to riots in the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021, when he was accused of posting messages inciting violence.
The developer TMTG promised to provide Truth Social "attractive and non-censored communication" for the part of the audience that believed that its views on sensitive topics such as the 2020 presidential election had been deliberately removed from mainstream social platforms.
TMTG is actively cooperating with Hive, a company in San Francisco that is developing an artificial intelligence-based retrofit system to filter out open content, hate speech, bullying and violence.
The decision about what to do with content marked by AI Hive is made by live moderators, and although the overall scope of TMTG's work on the upgrade is unclear, according to the announcement on the website, the company is actively recruiting specialists for the post of content manager, who will be responsible for checking "materials posted by users on the Truth Social for compliance with established community rules".
* Listed on the list of voluntary associations and religious organizations in respect of which the court has taken a legally enforceable decision to abolish or prohibit activities on the grounds provided for in Federal Act No. 114-FZ of 25 July 2002 on countering extremist activities.