August 31, 2022
According to a Google spokesperson, former U.S. President Donald Trump’s Android app on the social media platform Truth Social has yet to be endorsed for distribution in the Google Play Store. This is because there is not enough moderation to ban content such as threats and calls for violence.
With Android users downloading from the Google Play Store accounting for 40% of the US Smartphone market, the delay is a setback for 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’s statement said.
In return, Truth Social issued a press release saying they are only interested in guaranteeing freedom of speech.
“We have 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,” Truth Social said.
The sources for this piece include an article in Reuters.
