The approval of the former president’s Truth Social app in Google’s app store, which controls access to 44 percent of US smartphones, is being held up due to “content moderation concerns,” as mentioned in reports. While Google’s decision is pending, there has been negative media coverage about Trump’s platform.
In a statement made by Axios, which is now being reported elsewhere in the press, Google said Truth Social's approval for the Play Store was delayed because of concerns about content moderation.
“On Aug. 19, we notified Truth Social of several violations of standard policies in their current app submission and reiterated that having effective systems for moderating user-generated content is a condition of our terms of service for any app to go live on Google Play.”
Truth Social CEO Devin Nunes, who was a former congressman representing California, has expressed displeasure over the intransigence of the tech giant. “I don't know what's taking them so long,” stated Nunes in a recent radio interview.
The controversy surrounding the presence of Truth Social within the Play Store is receiving mass media attention. It comes shortly in the wake of The New York Times article about “QAnon” content on Trump's platform based on information from the establishment partisan group NewsGuard.
Google's decision on whether or not to endorse Truth Social hangs in the possibility of being a matter of debate; it is possible that the media are trying to influence Google's decisions.
The market for smartphones is a duopoly market, with more than the 99.9% of customers in the U.S. using either Apple's iOS or Google's Android operating systems.
Truth Social has been approved by Apple who control around 55% of all the markets in the U.S., but not Google which has cut off the app, as well as former president Trump's primary method for using social media for communication from the rest of the 44 percent.
After revealing that Google's biggest concern is violence-related threats within the site, Axios misleadingly claims that posts that threaten violence remain in Truth Social, citing just one of thousands of postings.
However, Truth Social has a specific policy that prohibits violent threats as well as other crimes, as does every other social media site.
The reason for the complaint is believed to be that the moderators of Truth Social sometimes miss violent threats or do not take the threats down fast enough. The same complaint could be made against any other social media site, including Twitter that has repeatedly failed to stop the spread of violence on its platform, such as threats to teenagers in high school or the Supreme Court justices.
A few months after the overturning of Roe,which precipitated an outpouring of threats as well as insults directed at Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas. some of the tweets which clearly violate the Twitter policies — continue to be on the platform.
Criminal activity is also on the streets of Twitter. In the George Floyd riots, Twitter let thieves utilize the platform to track people who were looting while doing nothing and not expressing any concern even after News pointed out the tweets that were causing trouble for businesses.
However, despite these and many other similar instances, Twitter, unlike Truth Social, is available on the Google Play Store.
