Devin Nunes, CEO of Trump Media & Technology Group (TMTG), is hitting back at critics of the social media app Truth Social and defending it, following recent days of turmoil.
In an interview with The Washington Times, the former Republican representative from California is standing up for the "free speech" app, which is aimed at conservatives. Nunes said that the negative press surrounding the social media company was done on purpose "from the fake news guys."
"A lot of the fake news guys.… They did this on purpose because the only guys who have been out there talking are myself and Donald Trump who have said we're going to be fully open when we're ready to be fully open because we're building all this from scratch," Nunes said to the Times.
The app has run into issues since launching in February by TMTG. Many users have been unable to access the app and instead were placed on long wait lists, which still appears to have more than 1 million people on it. For Android users and those outside of the United States, the app is not available. A website for users to post and reshare messages also does not appear to be in working order.
Last week, a mobile analytics firm stated that downloads for Truth Social were down more than 90 percent since launching in February. During the week of its launch earlier this year, there were more than 870,000 downloads, which has now fallen to approximately 60,000 downloads a week.
This week, Truth Social got more bad news when two of its top executives—Chief Technology Officer Josh Adams and Head of Product Development Billy Boozer—resigned.
Despite the issues, however, Nunes still said that he is optimistic and believes the company is on the right track.
"Bottom line is it's the fastest-growing social media company in history. There hasn't been one that has grown faster," Nunes said in the interview.
He also went on to reiterate that building Truth Social is a step-by-step process.
"Because we're building this from scratch without using any of the tech tyrants, anyone who can cancel us, we have to go methodically, step by step, to ensure both quality and reliability," Nunes said, according to the Times.
Nunes says that Truth Social will be able to compete with the giants in tech such as Facebook, Twitter and Google. In fact, in the interview, Nunes states he believes they are already at that point.
"It's already happening. We're just on the cusp of it, to bring social networking back to the way it is supposed to be.… We're the town square, and we're going to be the one who lifts all the boats," Nunes said.
Newsweek reached out to TMTG for further comment but did not hear back before publication.
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Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
