Truth Social—the social network founded by Trump Media & Technology Group after former President Donald Trump was banned from Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube—hasn't even launched yet, but things aren't going well.TMTG announced Truth Social on Oct. 20, and "plans to begin its Beta Launch for invited guests in November 2021," followed by a nationwide rollout in Q1 2022. Anyone can join the invite list for that closed beta, however, and the social network's companion iPhone app is available for pre-order via the App Store.The first problem: It didn't take long for people to discover a way to sign up for Truth Social ahead of its launch, and when they did, they discovered that usernames such as "@donaldtrump" and "@donaldjtrump" were available. The New York Times reports that these fake accounts (and those associated with other right-wing figures) were used to deface the site.That problem should be relatively easy to fix, especially since Truth Social hasn't officially launched. But issues with the site apparently violating the license used by Mastodon, a decentralized social-networking platform that appears to provide the foundation on top of which Truth Social was built, could be more difficult for TMTG to resolve ahead of the site's debut.Mastodon is an open-source project licensed under the GNU Affero General Public License v3.0 (AGPL-3.0). That license allows other developers to use, modify, and distribute the software as they see fit. Those developers are required to release that software under the same AGPL-3.0 license, however, and disclose that their project is based on Mastodon.The Daily Dot staff writer Mikael Thalen shared a screenshot of Truth Social on Twitter, to which Mastodon replied:Others quickly discovered that Truth Social is using a recolored version of Mastodon 3.0's theme by comparing Thalen's screenshot to Mastodon. Viewing the platform's source code reveals a reference to Mastodon as well. (Hopefully Missouri Governor Mike Parson doesn't learn that someone used their browser's developer tools to discover this information.)Truth Social's companion iPhone app could have the same problem. Mastodon released an official, open-source iOS client in July, but the platform still doesn't have an official Android client. Truth Social has an iPhone app but no Android app. This could be a coincidence, but it wouldn't be surprising if TMTG based Truth Social's app off Mastodon for iOS, either.If that is the case, Truth Social's terms of service violate the AGPL-3.0 license it's required to use by forking Mastodon. Those terms list the following as a prohibited activity: "copy or adapt the Site’s software, including but not limited to Flash, PHP, HTML, JavaScript, or other code," even though it seems the site itself copied and adapted Mastodon's source code.TMTG didn't immediately respond to a request for comment.
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Truth Social—the social network founded by Trump Media & Technology Group after former President Donald Trump was banned from Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube—hasn't even launched yet, but things aren't going well.TMTG announced Truth Social on Oct. 20, and "plans to begin its Beta Launch for invited guests in November 2021," followed by a nationwide rollout in Q1 2022. Anyone can join the invite list for that closed beta, however, and the social network's companion iPhone app is available for pre-order via the App Store.The first problem: It didn't take long for people to discover a way to sign up for Truth Social ahead of its launch, and when they did, they discovered that usernames such as "@donaldtrump" and "@donaldjtrump" were available. The New York Times reports that these fake accounts (and those associated with other right-wing figures) were used to deface the site.That problem should be relatively easy to fix, especially since Truth Social hasn't officially launched. But issues with the site apparently violating the license used by Mastodon, a decentralized social-networking platform that appears to provide the foundation on top of which Truth Social was built, could be more difficult for TMTG to resolve ahead of the site's debut.Mastodon is an open-source project licensed under the GNU Affero General Public License v3.0 (AGPL-3.0). That license allows other developers to use, modify, and distribute the software as they see fit. Those developers are required to release that software under the same AGPL-3.0 license, however, and disclose that their project is based on Mastodon.The Daily Dot staff writer Mikael Thalen shared a screenshot of Truth Social on Twitter, to which Mastodon replied:Others quickly discovered that Truth Social is using a recolored version of Mastodon 3.0's theme by comparing Thalen's screenshot to Mastodon. Viewing the platform's source code reveals a reference to Mastodon as well. (Hopefully Missouri Governor Mike Parson doesn't learn that someone used their browser's developer tools to discover this information.)Truth Social's companion iPhone app could have the same problem. Mastodon released an official, open-source iOS client in July, but the platform still doesn't have an official Android client. Truth Social has an iPhone app but no Android app. This could be a coincidence, but it wouldn't be surprising if TMTG based Truth Social's app off Mastodon for iOS, either.If that is the case, Truth Social's terms of service violate the AGPL-3.0 license it's required to use by forking Mastodon. Those terms list the following as a prohibited activity: "copy or adapt the Site’s software, including but not limited to Flash, PHP, HTML, JavaScript, or other code," even though it seems the site itself copied and adapted Mastodon's source code.TMTG didn't immediately respond to a request for comment.