Donald Trump is back on Twitter. But instead of a roaring return to his former favorite social network, the most recent tweet on his account is from January 2021. 

That’s because the former US president has his own megaphone in Truth Social, the social media platform that he helped launch after Twitter banned him for inciting a riot at the US Capitol. Truth Social has found a fanbase among conservatives—and seems to garner only more attention as news breaks about Trump and Elon Musk’s Twitter. It would seem Musk’s vows to bring near-absolutist free speech back to Twitter might entice those on Truth Social—a platform that claims to shun “censorship”—to spend more time on Twitter. But Truth Social’s users might be happy with their conservative community on Trump’s alternative app.

“People didn’t have much of an anticipation for Truth Social. It was widely mocked when it originally launched,” says Cameron Hickey, director of the Algorithmic Transparency Institute, which collects and analyzes digital media data. “People are using it. And it’s not just people shouting into a void, either. People are engaging.” 

Like Mastodon and other Twitter alternatives, Truth Social’s popularity has seen boosts tied to the recent chaotic news cycle. It boasted 10 million visits in November so far, up from about 8 million in October, according to SimilarWeb, a company that monitors web traffic. It regularly outranks other conservative-leaning social outlets like Parler and Gettr. And it saw spikes tied directly to Musk’s Twitter takeover, the US midterm elections, and Trump’s announcement that he would run for president again. But the largest uptick this month came on November 20—as Musk reinstated Trump’s Twitter account, people ran to Truth Social to see what he might say.  

And Hickey says data tracking 270 of Truth Social’s popular accounts show posts and engagements are trending upward over time, showing a “solid growth trajectory.” 

It’s a small but loyal group. Around 2 percent of US adults say they use Truth Social for news—compared to 14 percent getting news on Twitter, according to the Pew Research Center. They’re more likely to be right-leaning or supporters of Trump. And about 87 percent of Truth Social users say they expect the news and posts there to be mostly accurate. They also report higher levels of friendliness and satisfaction from using the site than those reported by people who use Twitter or Facebook for news. It’s been mired in controversy, with a man accused of attempting to attack an FBI office allegedly posting threats to the network first. The Truth Social app also became available for Android in mid-October—after the company agreed to moderate content that violates Google’s policies—giving it more room to grow. 

“Not only are people going there, getting news and information and finding it accurate, but they also feel at home there,” says Galen Stocking, a computational social scientist with the Pew Research Center who has studied Truth Social and other alternative platforms. 

Truth Social is both a replica and the antithesis of Twitter-like social network Mastodon. Focused on dialog and respect instead of ads, profit, and virality—meant to disincentivize trolls—Mastodon grew slowly. Mastodon also has heavy moderation capabilities, allowing server administrators to act on hate speech and other inappropriate content. It’s volunteer-run and crowdfunded, and many users encourage liberal use of the platform’s “content warnings” on posts about everything from sex to politics to news.

Then there’s Mastodon’s code. As Truth Social was under development in 2021, the Software Freedom Conservancy accused it of violating a free and open source software licensing agreement for taking Mastodon’s code. Anyone can use Mastodon’s code, but they must make the source code public. Truth Social called its code “proprietary,” which violated the licensing agreement. It later quietly added an open source section to its website, acknowledging the open source code and Mastodon. 

Alongside its growth, Truth Social is dealing with a financing snag: Some $1.3 billion in funding is entangled with a merger between Trump Media and Technology Group, which owns Truth Social, and Digital World Acquisition Corp. Federal prosecutors and regulators are investigating the deal, which could push Digital World to liquidate and the funding to evaporate. The clock was ticking with a December 8 deadline for the merger, but shareholders of Digital World voted on November 22 to delay the merger until 2023. Trump Media has also reportedly eyed partnerships with right-wing social media sites Rumble and Parler. 

That’s exactly the kind of problem something like Mastodon can avoid. It’s founded on an ideal of decentralization, meaning it cannot be bought and manipulated by one person because the network is made up of more than 7,700 independent servers. Mastodon has had explosive growth since Musk bought Twitter, and now has 2.4 million active monthly users, up from 381,000 the day the deal closed.

Truth Social is not decentralized, and it boasts several conservative celebrities but orbits around Trump and his brand. (He has 4.6 million followers on the platform.) Trump Media and Technology Group did not respond to requests for comment on the site’s size, how it has grown amid recent events, or whether Trump will return to Twitter. 

Trump has a vested interest in standing up Truth Social, so his indifference in returning to Twitter when Musk first bought the platform and floated the idea made sense. But now that he’s running for president in 2024, it may be difficult and detrimental for Trump to resist the lure of 88 million followers awaiting him on Twitter, compared to fewer than 5 million on Truth Social. Still, he’s staying away, for now. “I hear we’re getting a big vote to also go back on Twitter,” Trump said Saturday. “I don’t see it because I don’t see any reason for it.” 

Trump also reportedly has a contract with Truth Social that requires him to make many of his posts there exclusive for eight hours before they appear on other networks. (There are exceptions for some content directly related to political messaging, fundraising, and voter turnout.) 

Many people who use alternative platforms like Truth Social still get information from the giants like Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter, according to the Pew research. Like users of Mastodon, which people have signed up for as they wearily watch how Twitter could change, Truth Social users might be supplementing their social media rather than fully replacing Twitter. But it’s a go-to spot for breaking news—or, at least, as the place to watch Trump’s unfiltered reactions. After US federal agents searched Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate in August, downloads of the Truth Social app increased fivefold. 

Neither Mastodon nor Truth Social may ever rival Twitter. And Trump has remained characteristically vague about his intentions for the bird site he once called home. As Musk posed a poll to Twitter on November 19, asking whether he should reinstate Trump’s account, the former president shared it on his Truth Social. “Vote now with positivity, but don’t worry, we aren’t going anywhere,” he wrote. “Truth Social is special!”