Donald Trump’s Truth Social is SUSPENDING users who post about the January 6 hearings

Users are taking to Twitter to claim that Donald Trump‘s social media platform Truth Social suspended their accounts after they posted about the Democrats‘ January 6 hearings that kicked off Thursday.

‘My Truth Social account was just permanently suspended for talking about the January 6th Committee hearings,’ posted user Travis Allen, whose profile says he is an ‘Information Security Analyst’.

He followed up with another tweet on Friday saying, ‘It’s really strange to watch Trump supporters defend Truth Social’s decision to ban me from their platform. It’s like their ‘free speech’ nonsense is a complete lie.’

Another Twitter user, whose profile says he is a ‘Democratic Digital Strategist’, also said on Friday that he was suspended for the same reason.

‘I was suspended from Truth Social for posting about the January 6th hearing last night,’ Jack Cocchiarella lamented, alleging: ‘Donald Trump is scared of free speech.’

Allen accompanied his post claiming he was banned with an image of a Truth Social page with an exclamation point inside a triangle with the notice: ‘Account suspended.’

An information security analyst claimed Thursday that his account on Donald Trump’s social media platform Truth Social was ‘permanently suspended’ for posting about the January 6 hearings that kicked off Thursday

A Democratic digital strategist also claimed his account was suspended ‘for posting about the January 6th hearings’

The nine-person panel appointed by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi convened Thursday evening for the first in a series of public hearings regarding the January 6 Capitol attack. Pictured: The panel hears Trump’s daughter and former White House Advisor Ivanka Trump speak during their hearing June 9, 2022

The House select committee probing the January 6 Capitol attack kicked off a series of public hearings Thursday at 8:00 p.m., which aired on every network except Fox News. The hearings will continue on Monday at 10:00 a.m. 

Political pundits and media attention turned focus to the primetime event on Thursday evening, consuming most chatter on the internet and airwaves – including some posts on Trump’s site.

The former president’s social media platform’s terms of service include a clause reserving ‘the right to, in our sole discretion and without notice or liability, deny access to and use of the service (including blocking certain IP addresses), to any person for any reason or for no reason. We may terminate your use or participation in the service or delete [your account and] any content or information that you posted at any time, without warning, in our sole discretion.’

Twitter has similar language in its terms of service.

Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act provides internet platforms, such as Truth Social, the legal protections for content-moderation decisions. Trump unsuccessfully sought to revoke this rule when he was still president.

Allen pointed to the hypocrisy in Trump’s supporters defending the ban from Truth Social after lamenting of the former president’s ban from Twitter being against ‘free speech’

The communications director for Democratic congressional candidate for New York’s 10th district Yuh-Line Niou said he saw ‘a lot of folks getting banned’ from Truth Social ‘for posting updates about the January 6 Committee hearings’

When Trump was indefinitely banned from Twitter in the days following the January 6, 2021 Capitol attack, he vowed that he would create a ‘free speech’ social media platform that did not censure its users. It came after several conservative voices were seeing themselves suspended, censored or kicked off social media platforms like Twitter and Facebook.

Former Claifornia Republican Representative Devin Nunes, who served as top GOP member of the Intelligence Committee from 2015-2022, was tapped to lead Truth Social as the CEO.

People gather at a park outside the Capitol on Thursday evening to watch the hearings kick off

Truth Social, which is still ranked at 29 in the Apple App Store, was officially launched on February 21, 2022 and immediately saw a slew of bugs and glitches, including a lengthy waiting list to get approved for an account on the platform.

In the first two weeks after its release, the app was downloaded 2 million times by U.S. users. In late April, the app expanded to other devices other than Apple iOS.

Trump currently has 3.2 million followers on his app compared to the more than 88 million he had on Twitter before he was banned in early 2021.

The Trump Media & Technology Group, which is Truth Social’s parent company, is planning to launch a subscription-based service dubbed TMTG+ with ‘non-woke’ right-wing content, including ‘canceled shows,’ ‘blue-collar comedy’ and ‘Trump-specific programming.’