O WHYFOR ART THOU, SOCIAL TRUMP?

January 29, 2023 -Durt Fibo

Explanations for the announced reinstatement of Donald Trump’s Twitter, Facebook and Instagram accounts are basically only as rational as the men who made them, but some details might help the public prepare itself for the onslaught.

Although in Meta’s case the excuse was that Trump is now a declared presidential candidate, his return might not actually reach full visibility or volume until mid-year. This is because his contractual obligations assign a “social media exclusivity term” to his own venture Truth (“Pravda” in Russian) Social through June.

After running up around $38 million of debts since launching in 2021, the parent company –Trump Media & Technology Group (TMTG)- cleverly tied its star to this legal hitching post while it wandered into the saloon to order up a refreshing $1 billion to be produced by Digital World Acquisition Corp, a special purpose acquisition company (SPAC), which was to raise the money by going public (an IPO). To the dismay of Trump’s fans, this turned into a standoff with the SEC as the Feds investigated a multitude of scofflawing skulduggery by the companies, thus preventing the merger from coagulating. All the above information comes from the Securities and Exchange Commission itself. The Wall Street Journal defined Digital World Acquisition Corp thusly: “Also called a blank-check firm, a SPAC is a shell company that lists on a stock exchange with the sole intent of merging with a private firm to take it public. The private company then gets the SPAC’s place in the stock market. SPAC mergers have exploded in popularity in the past year for many startups because they are allowed to make projections about their business. Those aren’t allowed in normal IPOs.”

While all this was not happening, Trump wavered between praying for moneyed titularity and cannonballing back into his established social media cesspools, using the weak Pravda clauses stating that his words must be published on Truth Social only “six hours before posting the same content to other platforms,” and another exempting any post which “specifically relates to political messaging, political fundraising or get-out-the-vote efforts.” “Political messaging” can be broadly interpreted.

Of further interest: during this quietus a number of groups and pages with variations of the name “Team Trump” were allowed to continue their accounts uninterrupted by Meta. Finally, yet another whack-a-mole passel of lawyers hoping to get paid by Trump kept up attempts to negotiate the reinstatement of his personal Facebook account.