Former US President Donald Trump might be fighting his legal battles, but his quest for a social media platform that allows him to voice his opinions is far from over. After his "blog" posts titled "From the Desk of Donald Trump" failed miserably as it failed to gain any web traffic, a new platform that will host the former president is up and running.
One of Trump's closes advisors Jason Miller silently launched a new social media enterprise and calls it Gettr. This comes just a day after Trump Organisation was charged with running a 15-year employee tax scheme, as it was accused of helping its executives evade taxes on compensation by hiding the luxury perks and bonuses.
Gettr - the new MAGA alternative to Twitter
Ever since Twitter permanently banned Trump and Facebook suspended his account for two years, the former US president had been considering launching his own social network. Gettr has a mission statement that says: "fighting cancel culture, promoting common sense, defending free speech, challenging social media monopolies, and creating a true marketplace of ideas."
But what's surprising is Trump's absence from the platform. There's no clarity on whether or when Trump will join Gettr, but Politico quoted one person involved in the app's development as saying that an account is reserved for Trump and waiting for him. It is also unclear if Trump is any way involved with the project.
Gettr is still in its beta phase and is to be launched officially on the fourth of July. It currently has 50,000+ installs and less than 3,000 reviews with an average of 4-star rating. The app's description on the Play Store says Gettr is a "non-bias social network for people all over the world" and it is rated M for mature. The first update description simply reads, "Initial launch."
Anyone who has used Twitter will recognize the uncanny resemblance with a few modifications. Posts on Gettr can be 777 characters long and videos up to 3 minutes can also be shared in addition to hosting live sessions.
There are some red flag moves with Gettr. For starters, its users can choose to import copies of the content from Twitter and somehow Gettr also allows users to magically import their actual Twitter followers. Gettr is not only a Twitter knockoff but also scraping data off the microblogging platform and the legal implications are not known at this moment.
That's not where the questionable security moves end. It touts a "quick sign up process" and all it needs is the email address. This is an open invitation for trolls and bots. More than that, lax verification is a breach of safety protocol on many social media sites.
Then there are the reviews. The ones with top ratings are pro-Trump and political in nature but the ones who have given one-star ratings raise various issues like being unable to sign up, not receiving a confirmation code to verify the account, among various other issues.
Netizens react to Gettr
A lot of early birds have taken to Twitter to give feedback on Gettr. One interesting observation made by many users is that the existing profiles on the platform use stock photos from the internet. Netizens went on to even allege that the Gettr received funding from China. Check out some reactions below:
