Lewandowski Says Trump Social Media Platform Will Be ‘Interactive’ Way for Trump to Speak, Other People to Repeat or Reply to Him
The plan for former President Donald Trump to launch his own social networking app has gone from dismissed rumor to near certainty over the last few weeks, and on Saturday, former campaign manager Corey Lewandowski talked about it with Newsmax TV.
It’s not just about the publicity stunt aspect. Conservatives and Trump supporters have been furious about social networks like Twitter deplatforming Trump, as indeed have folks as varied as Bernie Sanders and the ACLU. The idea of Trump launching his own network in defiance of that ban, as well as the notion that the move would exact a certain measure of revenge for Big Tech’s deplatforming of entire platforms like Parler, has a lot to do with the level of interest.
Still, Lewandowski’s description doesn’t necessarily sound like a traditional style of social media platform. It comes across that he’s describing a tool specifically for Trump, not just by him.
“This is going to be launched in the next 3 to 4 months, and it’s going to be an interactive communication tool, whereby the president will be able to post things to it, and people will be able to repost and communicate directly with him,” said Lewandowski. “What we’ve seen from Big Tech and the cancel culture is, if you don’t agree with their philosophy, they’re going to cancel you. and we’re going to have a platform where the president’s message of America first is going to be able to be put out to everybody, and there’ll be an opportunity for other people to weigh in and communicate in a free format, without fear of reprisal or being cancelled.”
Interesting description, if somewhat murky on the functionality. On the subject of launching under conditions where his political detractors “control the levers” that allow such a platform to exist, Lewandowski said that Trump’s planned app would be entirely independent.
“The platform that the president is building is not going to rely on Amazon, or Amazon servers, it’s going to be completely built from scratch, from the ground up, and that’s going to give him the opportunity to control not only the distribution of it, but also who participates in it. I mean that in a positive way,” said Lewandowski.
“When you can cancel the president of the United States, the leader of the free world, from issuing First Amendment rights and opinions, then you can cancel anybody,” said Lewandowski, after noting the project had been on Trump’s plate for a long time.
“Big tech is out of control, they’re out of line, and congress needs to do something and step in,” he added.
It’s obviously a public relations pitch to say, as many commentators as well as former Trump adviser Jason Miller have been saying, that this hypothetical product will be a “game-changing” product, but the truth is it really could greatly impact the social media and information marketplace. You can decide for yourself whether that will be for ill or good.
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