Google Play Bars Trump's Truth Social Over Lack of 'Content Moderation'

Brittany M. Hughes | August 30, 2022
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Google Play, one of the most widely used digital distribution services in the world, has officially banned former President Donald Trump’s Truth Social app from its platform.

The move effectively means that Truth Social won’t be usable on Android devices, which comprise about 70-80% of the smartphones in the world with roughly 3 billion users. In the United States alone, Androids make up about 44% of the smartphone market share, with Apple’s iOS system taking up about 55%.

According to Google, the hosting system has so far banned Truth Social over “content moderation” concerns – i.e., censorship, or rather the lack thereof.

Related: FBI Special Agent Resigns Amid Pressure After Whistleblowers' Hunter Biden Probe Claims

“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,” a Google spokesperson said, per The Hill.

The report adds:

In particular, Google is concerned about violations of its policies prohibiting content with physical threats and incitements to violence.

The Google spokesperson added that the social media company acknowledged the feedback and is working on addressing the issue.

Truth Social CEO Devin Nunes said last week that the app is ready to host on Google Play and is just waiting for approval. Google, on the other hand, said they notified Truth Social officials on August 19 that the site wasn't yet in line with Google's rules.

Other social media apps have been booted from both Google’s and Apple’s distribution services after failing to meet the left’s censorship criteria. Shortly after the 2020 presidential election, the Twitter-esque, pro-free speech site Parler came under fire and was booted from several hosting platforms, including Amazon Web Services, for failing to comply with liberals’ demands for censorship of certain voices, most of them right-leaning.

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