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The White House says Truth Social is the ‘most powerful and popular social media platform in the world’

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Why This Matters

The White House's claim that Truth Social is the world's biggest social platform is contradicted by third-party data showing it doesn't crack the top 10, while its traffic is reportedly declining. The episode matters because it blends official government messaging with promotion of a business owned by the president, at a moment when Truth Social has launched a $100,000-a-month subscription that critics say invites corruption concerns.

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Worth a Look

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is a news writer who covers the streaming wars, consumer tech, crypto, social media, and much more. Previously, she was a writer and editor at MUO.

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The White House claims the Donald Trump-owned Truth Social is the “most powerful and popular social media platform in the world.” The statement, provided to The New York Times by White House spokesperson Davis Ingle, is at odds with the user counts from some of the biggest social media platforms on the web.

Data gathered by Search Engine Land shows YouTube is the most popular platform in the world, with 2.65 billion monthly active users. Facebook comes in second with 2.39 billion active users around the globe, followed by TikTok with 2.21 billion and Instagram with 1.99 billion. Truth Social doesn’t make Search Engine Land’s top 10 list, which shows Elon Musk’s X and Meta’s Threads at the bottom with 450 million and 223 million users, respectively. Even those platforms trail Pinterest, which is listed with 579 million global users.

Truth Social’s traffic appears to be declining. As reported by the NYT, data from Similarweb suggests that the number of monthly visitors to Truth Social dipped 36 percent in July compared to the same time last year. From January to July 2025, an average of 28 million people visited Truth Social each month, while this number fell to 25 million during the first seven months of 2026, according to the NYT. Last month, Truth Social launched its $100,000 / month subscription to gain early access to posts from Trump and other prominent users, raising concerns about corruption.

The NYT report details Trump’s posting patterns on Truth Social, which often include AI-generated images, such as one showing his head on Hulk Hogan’s body and another hitting a cut-out of Iran with a hammer brandishing the American flag. Ingle cites President Trump’s “authentic voice” as the reason for the platform’s so-called popularity, adding it’s where “he communicates directly with the American people and the world without the biased media taking him out of context.”