Trump’s Truth Social Remains Barred On Google Play Store

Truth Social, the social media platform from former US President Donald Trump, remains unavailable on Google’s Pay Store.

Google continues to refuse to approve it, because the app violates the Play store’s standards due to its insufficient content moderation, a Google spokesperson was quoted by Reuters as saying on Tuesday.

News of the Android delay was first reported by Axios, and comes despite the app being launched on the Apple App Store on 21 February this year.

Play Store

Android is the world’s largest mobile operating system, but in the United States Android phones make up only 40 percent of the smartphone market.

Its continued omission from the Google Play Store makes it harder for Android users in the US to download the app.

“On August 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,” Google was quoted as saying in a statement.

Google said it has expressed concerns to Truth Social about violations of its Play Store policies prohibiting content such as physical threats and incitement to violence.

Truth Social parent company Trump Media & Technology Group (TMTG) did not respond to Reuters’ request for comment, but in a press release it reportedly said that it has “continuously worked in good faith with Google to ensure that the Truth Social Android App complies with Google’s policies without compromising our promise to be a haven for free speech.”

“Moreover, some of our competitors’ apps are allowed in the Google Play Store despite rampantly violating Google’s prohibition on sexual content and other policies, whereas Truth Social has zero tolerance for sexually explicit content,” it added.

Truth Social

Truth Social is Trump’s latest effort to create an online presence for himself following his ban from most mainstream social media platforms after the deadly 6 January, 2021 attack on the US Capitol by his supporters.

At the time Trump was accused of issuing online messages that incited violence.

After leaving office and faced with an ongoing social media ban, Donald Trump launched his own website to publish content ‘straight from the desk’ of the former president.

But after only one month of operation, Donald Trump closed down that website.

Trump has lashed out repeatedly against the social networking bans and has previously asked a US judge to order Twitter to restore his account.