TRUTH Social platform to use AI moderation in attempt to be the 'most family-friendly site'

The former President was kicked off Twitter because of the risk of violence.
The former President was kicked off Twitter because of the risk of violence. Photo credit: TRUTH Social / Getty Images

Donald Trump's new social media platform will moderate content with the aim of being a "family friendly safe place".

It will apparently allow anti-vaxxers more freedom than other social media companies, however. 

TRUTH Social is expected to launch in the first quarter of this year and will have strict moderation practices, according to CEO Devin Nunes.

The former congressman from California told Fox Business the platform had engaged with tech company Hive to try and find the right tone.

"We want this to be a very safe place, and we are focused on making sure any illegal content is not on the site," Nunes said.

Hive's technology allows artificial intelligence (AI) to monitor text, images, video and audio and will automate the content moderation process.

This seems to go against the former US President and reality television star's previous stance on social media companies being allowed to decide what was appropriate and not.

"The new age of censorship is a disaster for our country," Trump said in 2021.

"Things were far better in the days when we had our debates fiercely and openly and then we could move forward together, as Americans."

But Nunes denied content moderation would equate to censorship, saying TRUTH Social wouldn't censor anyone "because they have a different opinion about, for example, a COVID vaccine".

"That is what the open internet is all about. It should be for the free flow of debate and ideas all over the globe, so that people can learn from one another and debate with one another."

Nunes didn't explain how it would do so while ensuring the platform remained "the most family-friendly site", as he described it.

Hive's CEO Kevin Guo told Fox Business his company's AI picks up violence, bullying, drugs, hate speech and sexually explicit content, and stops it being published.

The company also works with Parler, a Twitter alternative associated with conspiracy theorists and far-right extremists, and the likes of Reddit and Only Fans.

Neither Nunes or Guo made it clear whether the tweets that got Trump banned from Twitter would be acceptable on the new platform.

Twitter pulled the plug on the former Celebrity Apprentice star's account two days after the January 6, 2021 attack on the Capitol Building in Washington DC, saying Trump's tweets meant "the risk of further incitement of violence". 

TRUTH Social has had a turbulent start since it was first announced in October. Within hours of the news being made public, it had been defaced with memes and fake accounts in the names of famous people.

It then faced the potential of legal action after using open-source software to build the platform without acknowledging that as required by the license.

In December, Trump Media & Technology Group (TMTG) which runs TRUTH Social announced it has raised US$1 billion in funding, with Trump saying it would be "in a stronger position to fight back against the tyranny of Big Tech".