Truth Social: Unethical Financial Business Decision (2021-2022)

Truth Social: Unethical Financial Business Decisions (2021-2022)

ABSTRACT 

Truths Social is newly developed social media platform by our very own former president, Donald Trump. Donald Trump created this social media app to circumvent his ban by tech giants such as Twitter for inciting and encouraging violence on January 6^th which led to the riots of the capital. As a new uncensored alternative to Twitter and Facebook, this company already faces legal concerns following unethical business practices. This company has reportedly broken securities laws with the SEC as well as whistleblowing accusations. This media company also faces allegations of not paying its host company for its services. Despite this company’s rough start, this right-wing social media platform is still more popular than most. 

Donald Trump's First Post

            Ethical theories would be used analyze Truth Social’s actions as it becomes a new rising social media platform. Individualists theorize that the only goal of business is to profit so the only obligation that the person has is to maximize profit for the owner or the stockholders within the law. An individualist would not approve of Devin Nunes actions acting as CEO of this company. They would hold this individual responsible for making profits outside the boundaries of the law. Utilitarian’s require that people maximize happiness in themselves as well as others. Individuals say they were happy for having an uncensored alternative so they can speak there mind, but even then there are reports of Truth Social suppressing content.  Kantians on the other hand analyze individuals ethically on a whole other platform. Kantians judge individuals based on there actions, and what motivations fall behind each one. A Kantian would assess Co-founder Andy Litinsky in a different light. Andy Litinsky would be frowned upon for firing an individual for refusing to hand over some of his shares to the former First Lady, Melania Trump. As far as Virtue Theory is being applied it would cite moments of greed, disrespect, and selfishness. 

Company Background 

Truth Social, a social media platform based out of Florida, was created by Trump Media & Technology to circumvent Donald Trump’s ban by tech giants. TRUTH Social bases its platform from Mastodon which has a unique set up similar to Twitter. Mastodon mandates that anyone who uses its code make modifications publicly available. Furthermore, TRUTH Social appeared to have violated those terms by building on Mastodon by keeping its work quiet. Last October, the code’s creator demanded TRUTH to comply with the terms of the open-source license. In February 2022, Trump made the platforms first post. During the first week, the app was installed 872,000 times. Although a month later the user signup fell to 60,000 per week. Weekly visits fell form 6 million to 2 million during the same time frame. 

Trump Media and Technology Group in April 2022 announced Truth Social would be moving to Rumble's cloud platform and announced they would be performing infrastructure upgrades to increase the platform's performance. The Truth Social service was originally hosted  RightForge, a company aimed at providing internet hosting for conservative causes Shortly after moving platform services, RightForge claims that Truth Social owes them 1.6 million and was threatening to take legal action against them. These financial problems eventually lead to rising suspicions within the company and catch the attention of federal regulators from the SEC in June 2022. Trump Media and Technology Group, has its hopes pinned on a deal announced a year ago with Digital World Acquisition, a special purpose acquisition company that raised $300 million in an initial public offering of stock. The company later secured commitments from three dozen hedge funds to provide an additional $1 billion in financing upon the completion of the merger. Investigations by federal prosecutors and securities regulators could force Digital World to liquidate itself in early December and return to shareholders the money raised in its IPO, derailing the merger. Digital World has struggled to get its shareholders to approve a measure to complete the merger with Trump Media.

Case Controversy 

            Truth Social faces many ethical problems across the board as a social media company. This social media platform created by Trump Media & Technology Group was intended to be a platform where anyone can peacefully speak their mind and not have to worry about having their content suppressed for any reason. On the other hand, there are reports of users having there content banned and there personal profiles deleted. Stew Peters, a right wing media personality, claims that his very own post has been censored as well. Peters mentions "I'm ALREADY being censored on Truth Social, …Free Speech isn't free”(Binder 15). Peter’s feels that even a platform that preaches free speech, it will never be free. Even though what Peters posted on Truth Social may be considered violent, it is still not relevant to the matter at hand. Those who use the social media as well as Trump’s supporters use this very platform as a way to escape. 

Andy Litinsky, Former Employee 
of Truth Social

             This company is also undergoing investigations for unethical legal practices in the workplace. As of August 2022, a whistleblower submission was made by Will Wilkerson, the senior vice president of operations. He made his submission to the securities and exchange commission with original source information of alleged federal securities law violations, detailing fraudulent misrepresentations in violation of federal securities laws.  He backed his complaint with an abundance of emails, documents, messages and audio recordings which detail a pattern of infighting, technical incompetence, and power struggles inside Trump Media since 

its launch last year. Among the emails is an exchange between Wilkerson and fellow co-founder Andy Litinsky, who was allegedly fired as payback for refusing to hand over some of his shares, worth millions of dollars, to former first lady Melania Trump. Trump had already been given 90% of the company’s shares in exchange for the use of his name and some minor involvement.

            This problem stems back to when Litinsky was a former competitor on trump’s NBC reality show, The Apprentice. He reports that trump at that time spent two months demanding he give the ex-First Lady equity. Latinsky says “As I have informed [President Trump] several times, I have earned that equity, and also 'gifting' equity to Melania Trump would be a taxable event of which I can't afford to pay the taxes” (Lepore 10). 

            This company is also put under the spotlight for its Data Privacy policy. Trump Media and Technology group has mentioned that they will be making routine data collections about the user. The type of data that they will be collecting is that of the users browsing history, contact information and any pictures or videos they post. The other information they will be gathering in the data collection also includes “non-identifiable data”. This data analyzes the usage patterns and the personalization of the users. Nonetheless, this could only mean one thing. The former president will use this position not only to learn about users’ opinions and behaviors, but also to target them with personalized political messaging. 

 

Stakeholders

            The future of Truth Social is solely based on the relationship and status they share with their stakeholders. The stakeholders within this case are the Trump Media & Technology Group, Digital World Acquisition, as well as the upper management. Many of the parties involved are effected in there own way. Trump Media & Technology group are affected simply for the fact that if this platform does not work out they may not get a shot at building a platform like this again. If the public does not agree with the terms as well as enjoy the environment that they create on this app, they will lose weekly visits and the use of this app will slowly decline. Another stakeholder within this is Digital World Acquisition. Data World Acquisition is essentially a blank check company looking to make Trump Media & Technology a publicly traded company. If there are issues with senior management and financials, this company is not going to want to partner with a problematic company. The other Stakeholder within this company are the upper management. If individuals see that there is no fair treatment within the work place as well as see that there own financials will be controlled there is going to be no one willing to work in an environment as such. 

Individualism

A way individualism can be analyzed is through the eyes of Milton Freedman. Milton Friedman expresses that the only goal of business is to profit so the only obligation that the person has is to maximize profit for the owner or the stockholders within the law. Individualists would say to an extent that the company was in there right to maximize there profits by merging with Digital World Acquisition to become a publicly traded company. People would be able to invest in there social media platform and make it bigger than they possibly thought.

            Individualists would also question whether Truth Social was maximizing profits within the law. These companies have initially raised $300 million in an initial public offering of stock. The company later secured commitments from three dozen hedge funds to provide an additional $1 billion in financing upon the completion of the merger between the companies. According to the New York Times, “The S.E.C. investigation has focused on whether there were serious discussions between the leadership of Digital World and Trump Media before the SPAC went public in September and why those talks were not disclosed in regulatory filings” (Goldstein 8).  We may not know for sure what was discussed behind closed doors, but if there was anything important discussed they should have been incorporated in fillings made public to the community. This discussion could potentially break securities laws which in the eyes of individualists would be unjust

 

Utilitarianism

 

From a Utilitarian approach, we seek to maximize our happiness and the happiness of other people. We essentially be analyzing the happiness of stakeholders and those involved with Truth Social. The users of this application report having positive experiences. According to pew research, “Truth Social news consumers (58%) say the news they got there helped them better understand current events” (Forman-Katz and Stocking 6). Utilitarian’s would view this in a good light when users seem content with the news they are receiving from this platform. On the other hand, Utilitarian’s would question the user’s happiness when it comes to posting their own content online. Truth Social has limiting rules involving speech on the platform. The terms of service on this platform prohibit any tarnishing or disparage on their platform about any senior member who controls the platform. 

This social media platform created by Trump Media & Technology Group was intended to be a platform where anyone can peacefully speak their mind and not have to worry about having their content suppressed for any reason. Under Utilitarian views this problem would not fulfil the user’s happiness The users specifically use this platform so that they can speak their mind and not have to worry about there content being suppressed. 

 

 

Kantianism 

 

The views of Kantianism were developed by Immanuel Kant and focuses on acting rationally and committing acts of good will. There are four components that make up Kantianism and they include acting rationally, allow and help people making rational decisions, respect people and their individual needs and differences, as well as be motivated to do what is right because it is right. One of the main formulations involved in Kantianism is the Categorical Imperative which tests whether actions are permissible or impermissible. This theory as well as formulation will be utilized in the case of the whistleblower accusations.

            Will Wilkerson, senior vice president of operations, was sacked for speaking to the Washington post about a whistleblower complaint to the SEC. Wilkerson filed the SEC whistleblower complaint alleging that the company relied on “fraudulent misrepresentations … in violation of federal securities laws” (Iacurci and Calia 3). Kantians would believe the actions of this individual would be permissible. This individual believed what he was doing was right because it was the right thing to do since the company was conducting business on unlawful grounds. It was also the right thing to do considering a fellow peer of his was being pressured to hand over equity that was not rightfully his. 

Donald Trump, Chairman of Truth Social

                        From the other point of view Kantians would assess that Trump is not acting rationally. Trump is firing co-founders and employees that started off the company for not complying with what he wants. Trump terminated Andy Latinsky’s role in for refusing to hand over some of his shares, worth millions of dollars, to Melania Trump. Latinsky also mentions that trump is “retaliating against me by threatening to ‘blow up the company’ if his demands are not met”(Lakhani 6). Kantians would assess that Trump’s emotions and actions are not rational because he is not respecting the decisions of his works and is not respecting the needs and differences of his workers.

 

Virtue Theory 

Devin Nunes, CEO of TMTG

            Virtue theory is a theory created by one of the great Greek philosophers, Aristotle. Virtue theory can be defined as the goal not to form virtues that mean we act ethically without thinking, but to form virtues that help us see the world clearly and make better judgments as a result. The four main virtues that this theory focuses on is courage, temperance, honesty, and justice. 

            Truth social violated the virtues of honesty and temperance in its time of becoming a new social media platform. During the time of SEC investigations, it has focused on whether there were serious discussions between the leadership of Digital World and Trump Media before the SPAC went public in September and why those talks were not disclosed in regular filings. In this case there is no projection of honesty of what is occurring in the company which should be made public to everyone if it is becoming a publicly traded. 

            The virtue of temperance was violated on two accounts. The first account that the virtue was violated was when Trump fired Will Wilkerson for talking to the Washington Post. Everyone has the right to free speech and speak their mind. This is similar to the platforms idea of being able to speak their mind clearly and not have to worry about being censored for what they say. These ideals are apparently not the same for the platform as it is in the workplace. The virtue was also broken when Trump threatened Andy Latinsky for not handing over his shares. He proceeded to threaten him by saying he will “blow up” the company. There is no restraint in Trumps action by threatening and forcing Andy’s hand to give over his shares.

 

 

Justified Ethics Evaluation

            In my opinion, actions conducted by Truth Social were very unprofessional as well as unethical. These situations all around could have been handled much better.  Leadership in the higher management failed by committing unethical acts that can harm there image as a new platform. Donald Trump along with Devin Nunes specifically had stunted there growth with bad leadership. The company, I thought had a shady way of conducting business. As a new company they fell in debt early by failing to make a payment on time and the receiving end had to threaten with legal. Also while trying to merge with the acquisition group they were conducting shady business by talking behind closed doors which should be made public for numerous reasons. The first reason being that they were getting funding from 3 dozen hedge funds and I ought to think they should know what they are getting into. Secondly, if they are becoming a public traded company they should have an image that portrays they are going to be confidently buying stock in. 

            Donald Trump also handled whistleblowing accusations poorly because of his unethical business decisions. He fired one of his co-founders for speaking out for unrightful termination. Andy Litinsky who was an employee of Truth Social was fired as payback by Donald Trump. He was terminated for refusing to hand over money that was his by right.  Donald Trump is a rich business man as is, a few shares shouldn’t affect his rational thinking. Trump also threatened to “Blow up” the company and throw it away. That is down right selfish and is willing to throw away the enjoyment people get from using this platform. 

 

Conclusion

Many social media company’s hold a greater standard when it comes to leadership and there decision making. On the hand Truth Social failed to do so. There operations and money allocation was very poor. They have also failed to keep there promise as a company of developing a free, uncensored environment. I feel as if they should create a new board with legal advisors that could steer them in a direction where they could becoming a promising stock in the stock exchange. I also feel as if Donald Trump should step away from this company and let a different CEO take over. They should also change there terms of service where they do not track personal information. This also ensures as way to protect peoples free speech by not giving up there identities. 

 

 

 

 

 

REFERENCES

 

 

Binder, Matt. “Truth Social Already Censoring Content, Bans User Who Made Fun of Trump Media CEO.” Mashable, Mashable, 24 Feb. 2022, https://mashable.com/article/trump-truth-social-free-speech-bans. 

Calia, Mike, and Greg Lacurci. “Trump Media Fired Executive Whistleblower after He Spoke to Washington Post, Shared Documents.” CNBC, CNBC, 15 Oct. 2022, https://www.cnbc.com/2022/10/15/trump-media-fired-whistleblower-after-he-spoke-to-washington-post.html. 

Goldstein, Matthew. “Trump's Social Network Deal Is under Grand Jury Scrutiny.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 27 June 2022, https://www.nytimes.com/2022/06/27/business/trump-truth-social-federal-investigation.html. 

Lakhani, Nina. “Whistleblower Trump Media Executive Says Firm Violated Federal Securities Laws.” The Guardian, Guardian News and Media, 16 Oct. 2022, https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/oct/16/trump-media-truth-social-whistleblower-sec-complaint. 

Lepore, Stephen. “Former Truth Social Exec Claims Co-Founder Lost Board Seat for Not Giving Shares to Melania Trump.” Daily Mail Online, Associated Newspapers, 16 Oct. 2022, https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11320297/Truth-social-executive-says-fired-refusing-Trumps-demand-transfer-shares-Melania.html. 

 

 

Truth Social: Shady Deals Lead to a Federal Investigation (2022)

ABSTRACT:

    The relatively new, conservative based social media app, Truth Social, has been sparking controversy since the time of its development in early 2021. This application, headed by Donald Trump and his company Trump Media, has raised questions about not only how it is being run and moderated, but also the dealings behind the scenes that have led to a federal investigation. Investors, developers, and users, and even those who have left the company have been affected by this, and some who continue to be involved are dealing with the consequences.

    Despite the polarizing topic of the app’s political nature, this paper is intended to be an objective look into how the situation is viewed by four ethical theories: Individualism, Utilitarianism, Kantianism, and Virtue Theory. Only after considering the teachings of each theory will a verdict be able to be placed on Truth Social, and in turn, their parent company, Trump Media. After looking into each of the theories and their teachings, the acts from Trump Media and Truth Social will clearly be seen as more unethical that not.

CASE CONTROVERSY:

Final tweets from former president Donald Trump

    Before discussing the controversy of Truth Social, its conception must be understood. On January 8^th, 2021, closely following the January 6^th insurrection of the U.S. Capitol Building, Donald Trump posted several tweets further spreading the message that the election was stolen and denying a peaceful transfer of power. According to a statement by Twitter, “We assessed the two Tweets referenced above under our Glorification of Violence policy, which aims to prevent the glorification of violence that could inspire others to replicate violent acts and determined that they were highly likely to encourage and inspire people to replicate the criminal acts that took place at the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021” (Twitter). Many other forms of social media followed this act, banning the former president on their respective apps. Due to Trump using these sites as his major form of reaching his political followers, he was forced to use far smaller platforms. This caused him to look for an alternative, and eventually to create a competitor of his own: Truth Social.

    However, to launch such an app, they needed financial support from external sources, so Trump Media looked to investors for help. In late 2021, a deal was struck between Trump Media and the company Digital World Acquisition. Specifically, Trump Media would get $300 million for agreeing to a merger with Digital World (Goldstein and Thompson). This was a surprise to many, as there was nothing publicly stated before this time about a merger. However, this, in addition to $1 billion from several hedge funds, would be more than enough to fund Trump’s passion project and not many more eyebrows were raised.

The waitlist for Truth Social from https://ichef.bbci
.co.uk/news/640/cpsprodpb/1407C/production/_
123944028_screenshot2022-03-29at15.14.28.png

    Launching just over a year after the permanent bans took place, Truth Social was marketed as a right-wing app that was highlighted by its lack of moderation, labeled by the developers as free speech. While this seemed like a safe haven for far-right wing Americans, in February of 2022, they were met with a host of issues with the interface of the app. The launch was “plagued by technical glitches and a 13-hour outage” (Kelly) and a month after its release, “new users are still being put on an ever-expanding million-person or more waitlist to join the app” (Kelly). While all major apps have technical difficulties in their early stages, this seemed to be more than expected. Reportedly, two executives of Truth Social resigned from their positions due to the nature of the launch. Josh Adams, the Chief Technology Officer, and Billy Boozer, the Head of Product Development, did not make a comment on specifics about their swift resignations.

Ricky Shiffer at the attack on the U.S. Capitol. 
https://www.sportskeeda.com/pop-culture/what
-ricky-walter-shiffer-do-armed-man-killed
-police
-standoff-attempted-ohio-fbi-office-breach

    In addition, the budding social media app was gaining more users, but this meant more of a chance for misuse. Following the FBI’s search of Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home in August of 2022, there was an uproar on the app, including messages from a man by the name of Ricky Shiffer. One of these posts read “get whatever you need to be ready for combat” (Thompson and Goldstein). Later, he was killed attempting to break into an FBI office in retaliation to the search. While some point to Donald Trump for fueling some of this hatred, the senior research manager for Institute for Strategic Dialogue, Jared Holt, has another view of it. He indicated that, “the unfortunate truth is that any platform — once it gets big enough — has to deal with somebody doing something like that” (Thompson and Goldstein). This death made it difficult to justify one of its largest draws for the userbase: the lack of moderation.

Timeline of Events

    These were not the only issues with the company however, as internally there were surfacing problems surrounding the merger with Digital World. A whistleblower by the name of William Wilkerson claims that there were “fraudulent misrepresentations … in violation of federal securities laws” (Harwell). Based on Special Purpose Acquisition Company (SPAC) guidelines, talks of mergers between parties must be disclosed to the public. While Digital World did later acknowledge that there had been undisclosed talks of the Merger between representatives of each company, they “argue that those talks were too preliminary to meet the threshold for disclosure” (Goldstein). But with these admissions in addition to the whistleblower, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has launched an investigation into the deal. This process is far from over, but at this point, anything else would be pure speculation as those concerned with the company are waiting for the result of the investigation. As of now, the merger still has not gone through, but Digital World’s shareholders have extended the deadline of the merger a few months, and are looking at other long term options, to accommodate the company during the investigation.

STAKEHOLDERS:

    This process, from the deal with Digital World to those resigning because of too many technical issues, has affected many people, whether it be in a positive or negative manner. It is important to highlight some of these individuals and groups to acknowledge their level of involvement. This will help to adequately represent all parties involved when thinking about each ethical theory. The most obvious of these is Truth Social and by extension Trump Media. Based on the results of the Federal investigation, they could lose out on their promised $1.3 billion. Digital World is in a similar situation, as they would be forced to return the $300 million initially raised by the investors. Directly following this, the investors and contributing hedge fund managers would be affected by their money returning to them without payout. Another set of stakeholders are those using the app. While many are satisfied with the experience, the host of problems with other users and technical issues must be taken into consideration. Some individuals associated with the groups above are Donald Trump, Josh Adams, Billy Boozer, William Wilkerson, and Ricky Shiffer.

INDIVIDUALISM:

    This ethical theory is among the simplest to understand and can be broken down into two main parts. To be ethical under Individualism, an action must be profitable for the company, and in tandem, there must be no laws broken. From the perspective of Truth Social and Trump Media, this merger with Digital World was indeed a quite profitable idea. They would be gaining a total of $1.3 billion. To satisfy the second characteristic of Individualism, Trump Media claims that everything was done legally. If they are to be taken at their word, this would be an ethical action.

    However, there is more to this than it seems at first glance. If it proves that there were deceptive dealings between Digital World and Trump Media, the verdict would shift. The aforementioned result of Trump Media being innocent, and hence the merger being ethical is only one of two possible outcomes. The other is that they are guilty of fraudulent behavior. It is unclear which laws they are being investigated for, but if they have carried out illegal activity, the merger would not go through, and the money would be returned to the respective investors. This in turn would violate both the necessities behind individualism. The obvious part of them being guilty would imply that the law has been broken. As a result, profitability would be diminished greatly if not fully taken away. They would lose the money promised by the merger, making the action unethical. This cannot be reasoned whether it is ethical or not, but it is entirely based off the investigation.

UTILITARIANISM:

    Contrary to Individualism where only the company taking action is considered, Utilitarianism takes the wellbeing of all stakeholders into account. The major tenant of this theory is to maximize happiness. If the action does not maximize happiness, then it is considered unethical. Similar to the last analysis, two cases will be considered regarding the outcome of the federal investigation. However, some stakeholders in the process are not particularly interested parties when it comes to the investigation, and hence they will be listed first. The main reason many of them are no longer linked to the company and its dealings is because they have been taken out of the equation in one way or another. Josh Adams and Billy Boozer were unhappy with the company and how the technical issues were being handled, as this was their reported reason for leaving. Another former executive, William Wilkerson the whistleblower, was so unhappy with the dealings at the company that he felt the need to file a formal complaint with the SEC. The final consideration for the currently uninterested parties is Ricky Shiffer. While he theoretically cannot feel happiness nor the contrary, his death presumably caused despair among family and friends. In this category, there were no feelings of happiness, but before an ethical judgment can be placed, the other two cases must be presented.

    If Trump Media is not guilty, it is reasonable to assume they would be happy as the long-awaited merger would finally be able to go through. This would give them access to funds to run Truth Social and potentially work on further ventures. It would equally make Digital World and their investors happy as they would make a profit from this just as much as Trump Media would. Taking the first group of people into account, there are more people who are happy simply because of the quantity associated with the deal that outweigh those who have been burned leading to the merger. On the contrary, if this deal is found to be illegitimate, all mentioned parties would completely flip and be unhappy. Truth Social could be at risk of shutting down with a lack of finances to run successfully, which would make all the employees generally unhappy. The same logical reasoning can explain the displeasure of all associated with Digital World and the investors funding the merger. In this case, all parties are not happy, so it would be unethical. Due to the divide in the cases, it is left up to the investigations results.

KANTANIANISM:

    While both of the past ethical theories were fairly simple, they also had some sizeable shortcomings that can create holes in their logical arguments. To make up for a lapse in the inadequacies of these theories, Kantianism is slightly more complicated and less black and white. There are a few important principal thoughts associated with this way of ethical analysis. The primary ones are to act rationally and to respect others’ rationality. All other rules of Kantianism can be derived from these two statements. If you are not helping people to be rational, or worse, obstructing their rationality by lying, this is not showing respect to their rationality. In addition to this, there are two important formulas to live by: the Formula of Humanity and the Formula of Universal Law.  The first of these claims that one must respect another’s humanity and never use them as a means to some end. The second of the formulas says to act according to a maxim and if you can universalize this maxim without contradictions to rationality, it is permissible.

    There is more to the teachings of Kant, however, this is more than enough information to pick out several violations by the heads of each company. One such infringement is the deceit behind the talks between representatives of Trump Media and Digital World that were not disclosed to the public. This does not respect the rationality of the public. Despite the companies not explicitly being dishonest, they were lying by omission. This also fails the Formula of Universal Law. Consider the maxim as not disclosing the talks to the public. Universalizing this, it can be seen that there is some information that could be useful that is unknown to people, hence lapsing their rationality.

    Another such violation is the idea of Truth Social as a whole. Trump Media is using those who work at the company, as well as the users of the site, as mere means to complete a merger that will profit Trump Media primarily. While Truth Social will also see some of the benefits, it will be less direct, contradicting the Formula of Humanity. Opposed to the last two ethical theories, Kantianism does not hinge on the federal investigation heavily. However, if found guilty, this would go against all what Kant believed to be ethical, as lying is an impermissible act. Therefore, it can be reasoned that this deal is unethical under the teaching of Kantianism.

VIRTUE THEORY:

    The final analysis that will be considered is that of Virtue Theory. When discussing this way of thinking, the first logical question is determining what a virtue is. It can be expressed as a characteristic that allows something to function as it is intended to. In humans, there are four major characteristics: courage, temperance, justice, and honesty. It can be seen quite easily that one must strive for these virtues, but they are each on their own spectrum. Take courage for instance; it sits on the spectrum between the vices of cowardice and recklessness. Despite these being qualities of an honorable person, humans are not inherently virtuous. The process to become virtuous has four steps. One must model themselves after a virtuous person, thus making it easier to know what habits to follow. Next, it must be acknowledged that most people are weak willed, and hence, the transformation will be difficult. Once this is realized, it is important to attempt to act with the virtuous qualities in mind. Once these actions become habit, they develop into character traits and in turn virtues.

    As honesty is one of the cardinal virtues, the argument for why the merger is not ethical follows similar logic to that of Kantianism. It is quite clear that those representing Trump Media and Digital World have failed one or more of the aforementioned steps. It would only be speculation to figure out where the error was, but no matter which step was missed or ignored, the outcome was the same. They were dishonest with the public about their talks of a merger behind closed doors. This also relies slightly on the result of the investigation, as it could violate the cardinal virtue of justice as well. If they are found to be guilty of fraudulent activity, this would directly contradict this virtue. Based on all the presented information, the teachings of Virtue Theory would undoubtedly condemn the merger between Trump Media and Digital World as being unethical.

JUSTIFICATION OF ETHICS:    

    Reviewing the verdicts of the four considered theories, we have two that outright would label the merger unethical. The other two are somewhat inconclusive due to the fact that they rely so heavily on the outcome of the federal investigation. But to determine if it truly can be labeled one way or another, the ethical theories must be combined in some way to adequately judge them. One such method of combination could be to give each theory an equal weight. This approach would rely on the investigation so it will again be broken into cases. If the merger is found to be legitimate, the divide between theories claiming ethical and unethical will be two on one side and two on the other. Alternatively, if the deal is found to be illegal, all four theories label it as unethical. However, there is one final instance to examine. In the case of this current time, two theories label it as being unethical and two cases are undetermined. This can be modeled by looking at the probabilities of certain events. If we say each ethical theory is equal to one if unethical and zero if ethical, and the expectation is greater than two, the act is more likely to be unethical. Since major news sites are writing about it, it is reasonable to assume the probability of the investigation yielding a guilty verdict is greater than zero and hence, the expectation for the two undetermined theories is greater than zero. Added to the two that would define it as unethical, it can be seen that the expectation is greater than two. Therefore, the merger is more likely to be unethical currently.  

CONCLUSION:

    It must be noted that this has been researched and written from the information available by December 2, 2022. As seen throughout the paper, much of it relies on the results of the federal investigation. However, it was written in such a way that hopefully the reader may easily convert the ethical theories to one way or another once the results are established. The covered scenarios are not necessarily comprehensive of all possibilities, but simply the most probable ones.

Owen Boyns

REFERENCES:         

Goldstein, Matthew. “SPAC Tied to Trump Media Says Early Talks Were Not 'Substantive'.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 25 Oct. 2022, https://www.nytimes.com/2022/10/25/business/trump-media-spac-sec.html. 

Harwell, Drew. “Co-Founder of Trump's Media Company Details Truth Social's Bitter Infighting.” The Washington Post, WP Company, 16 Oct. 2022, https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2022/10/15/truth-social-trump-animosity-whistleblower/.

Kelly, Makena. “Two Top Truth Social Execs Resign from the Company.” The Verge, The Verge, 4 Apr. 2022, https://www.theverge.com/2022/4/4/23010005/truth-social-billy-boozer-josh-adams-donald-trump-social-media-rumble-tmtg.

“Permanent Suspension of @RealDonaldTrump.” Twitter, Twitter, https://blog.twitter.com/en_us/topics/company/2020/suspension.

Thompson, Stuart A., and Matthew Goldstein. “Truth Social's Influence Grows despite Its Business Problems.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 1 Nov. 2022, https://www.nytimes.com/2022/11/01/technology/truth-social-conservative-social-app.html.

The Growth of Truth Social (2022)

ABSTRACT

    Truth Social is the newest conservative marketed social media

Truth Social CEO Devin Nunes 

platform. Owned by Trump Media & Technology Group. Has had a massive growth since its launch in February of 2022. It had a total number of 1.7 million unique users compared to its competitors only averaging 360,000 unique users. The company had a rocky start with two executives quitting and another executive being fired in October by filing a whistleblower complaint to the Securities and Exchange Commission that Truth’s parent company was relying on fraudulent misrepresentations. The four different ethical belief systems have different beliefs of whether this platform is ethical. Individualism loves this platform, utilitarianism believes this site is good but its user base is unethical, Kanianism believes that the platform is unethical because of an unwillingness to limit what people say, and lastly virtue theory again believes the platform is bad based on understanding basic human actions. This site is seen as ethical, the concept is very ethical because the people are what make this platform unethical, humans by nature are unethical beings and the internet makes people think they can say whatever they wish without consequences so it brings out the worst habits and behaviors of human beings.

ETHICS CASE CONTROVERSY

Truth Social Star and Trump Media & Technology Group
CEO Donald J. Trump

Truth Social joined the already full social platform race on February 21, 2022, created by the Trump Media & Technology Group. It is a right-wing social network which already faces two federal investigations with uncertain financial future. With this they have still managed to outpace rival social media platforms. Though it doesn’t compare with Twitter, and Facebook. Compared to its closest rivals such as Gab, Parler, Gettr, MeWe and Minds who averaged about 360,000 unique visitors in September Truth Social towers over them with a number of 1.7 million unique visitors all from the US. The right-wing social media platform has faced problems after problems since its launch date, one of those being two executives resigning after the app was launched still full of problems. A third executive was fired after filing a whistle-blower complaint which was that Truth’s parent company was relying on fraudulent misrepresentations. The company is currently under two separate federal investigations which is putting a $1.3 billion constraint on the already financially drained company. Much of Truth’s growth is owed to former President Donald J. Trump who is one of Truth’s founders and the star of the app. He is not the only well known right-wing politician or celebrity on this app; he is joined by Dan Bongino, Marjorie Taylor Greene and numerous conspiracy theorists, far-right influencers and many other Republican voters. The platform has had significant growth especially among the right-wing political party. This has made the platform bigger than anticipated. It is growing at a far faster rate than any of the social media platforms currently out there for consumer use. It does have its issues on the financial front which is why the company has its hopes set on a deal made with Digital World Acquisitions. The company successfully raised $300 million with their initial public offering of stock. They later received money from three dozen hedge funds which came to an additional $1 billion in finances upon the completion of the merger between the two companies. Though this deal will most likely fall through which will lead to Truth going from hoping to gain $1.3 billion to nothing. The reason for this is because Digital World is currently under investigations by both federal prosecutors and securities regulators which could lead to them having to liquidate themselves in early December and force them to return to shareholders the money raided in its I.P.O. The fact of the matter is if this deal falls through Trump Media will have to scavenge for financing to be able to keep Truth Social running. 

Unique monthly visits over the past year

William Wilkerson, former executive of Trump Media was fired in October after publicly admitting to have filed a whistle-blower complaint with the Securities and Exchange Commission or SEC. He admitted that the company was using up about $1.7 million in cash each month. Truth has recently started running advertisements. This high amount of cash to keep this app running is probably one of the main reasons they finally started to run advertisements. Mr. Wilkerson said that if the deal with Digital World did end up falling through then “a plausible alternative would be for Trump Media to consider a merger with Rumble, a conservative video-sharing alternative to YouTube, which has emerged as Trump Media’s main business partner”(NYTimes). As shared to us through Mr. Wilkerson and a second person with knowledge of Truth Social’s operations about half the people that work at Trump Media’s office in Sarasota Florida, are Rumble employees. Rumble provides most of the backbone that allows Truth Social to function as well as it does. With Rumble having just completed its own merger with SPAC, giving the company roughly $400 million in cash and now being a publicly traded entity they will likely have a merger with Truth Social. 

With Elon Musk completing his takeover of Twitter he has promised more lenient policies which could lead to some conservatives leaving Truth and heading back to Twitter. With Kanye West who plans to buy Parler there could be two new competitive apps that will be eye catching to conservatives which is the primary target of Truth Social. Though Truth is still on the rise and with the release of Truth Social on Android devices, it has granted access to a bigger population of people. About 40 percent of Americans use an Android operating system. Truth Social is still a very new platform. They are still trying to figure out their financial situation and they have grown at a faster pace than their competitors did at their age. The true test of what will happen to the company will be within the next couple of months. If they can successfully get funding to keep running then they will have a massive impact on what happens with the presidential election. If they flop and end up shutting down then it will go to show that even with a great amount of people and followers without proper financial backing a company is doomed to fail.

Chris Pavlovski CEO Rumble

STAKEHOLDERS 

The primary stakeholders of Truth Social are Chris Pavlovski the founder and CEO of Rumble, who provides technology and services to Trump Media & Technology Group. Another one would be Devin Nunes former congressman and CEO of Truth Social who is the one who has the most to either gain or lose based on how Truth does, another one would be Donald J. Trump former president as the CEO of Trump Media & Technology Group who owns the rights to Truth Social. There are also all the employees that have been hired and all of those who own stock in the company.

INDIVIDUALISM

From an individualist’s perspective, the actions that Truth Social is performing are exactly their ideals. The reason this is, is because truth social is all about protecting freedom of speech and allowing the users to say whatever they wish without reprimand or punishment. Similar to how other platforms react. Individualism has a couple key values that they follow, they believe that all values are human centered and each individual person is of extreme importance, and all individuals are morally equal so no matter who you are your voice matters, your opinions matter. Nobody should be able to tell you what you can and cannot say. The second amendment of the US constitution is a main value of an individualist. Truth Social markets themselves as protecting the First Amendment through an online platform which is rarely seen on most online platforms because of being forced to follow international laws. Most platforms have to create their sites under laws that appease all countries or risk being blocked in that country. Truth Social is primarily focused in America and marketed in America, plus it was created to follow American laws. This site has the highest amount of public freedom with what they can say. The application is also free to use which means they are not limiting who can use the app. Most apps view the needs of the group over the individual. They market themselves towards a target group which is usually a set age group, though they do have to put into consideration that people of other ages will probably access the site so they have to censor certain topics or discussions. These online platforms can have toxic people which cause issues and they have trolls who try to cause issues for the masses. Which sites try to stop by banning them or deleting what they have said so the masses cannot see what they have said. This app does not do this; they have marketed themselves as a platform where people can say whatever they wish whether that information is true or not. It will not be limited. People can view the site and choose to either believe or not to believe what they have read on their own. Which is exactly what an individualist wants from the world.

UTILITARIANISM 

Truth Social Apple download

From a utilitarian perspective this social network platform can go against what they believe and follow their beliefs. The reason for this seemingly contradiction is because of what their moral beliefs are. They believe morality is meant to foster happiness and pleasure, though they oppose actions that lead to unhappiness. They believe an act is good if it truly benefits the majority. The utilitarian belief states there are always two sides of a story like a coin, so if something promotes happiness but also spreads false information by lying they would see nothing wrong with it because it is spreading a positive image. But if something tells the truth but it causes unhappiness then they would see something wrong with it and disagree with it. What this means for this platform is that if what people talk about on the site leads to happiness for others they will see nothing wrong with what is said whether it's the truth or fiction. Though if it is discriminatory, or racist, or meant to antagonize either a group or everybody then they will be displeased and be against it. So their perspective will not see anything wrong with the app itself but how the users of the app use it. They would see true freedom of speech as a good thing upon people using it to create happiness and not anger. Though this will be difficult as there have been numerous accounts of racism, homophobia and antagonism already posted and spread about the application. This application was used to identify an armed assailant in a FBI office in Cincinnati. “Ricky Shiffer, had posted about the Mar-a-Lago search and told followers to “get whatever you need to be ready for combat.” The same account also appeared to confess to an attack on the F.B.I.”(NYTimes). Users like these would go against the utilitarian perspective through research done by Pew Research, which found some statistics on how users are being treated on the platform, 

A large share of those who regularly get news on Truth Social (57%) say they are very or somewhat satisfied with the experience, while 25% are very or somewhat dissatisfied and the rest give a neutral assessment. Additionally, 59% of these news consumers say the discussions they see on the site are mostly friendly, while 16% see mostly unfriendly discussions and 25% say they see about an equal mix of friendly and unfriendly discussions. (PewResearch)

These statistics would help a utilitarian to decide whether they agree with the existence of this social network platform or not. Based on these statistics, 41% of consumers are seeing unfriendly discussions so this would go against a utilitarian belief. If that number was zero or at least a lower percent they would probably find this site to be okay and follow their beliefs. That percentage is too high and they would not agree with this even though a majority of users are seeing positive and friendly results. 

KANTIANISM 

A Kantian thinker would see this site as immoral. The reason for this is because the site does not even try and limit what a person can say or act. People will act in a way that will be immoral to a Kantian thinker. The Kantian Ethics follow very set rules at a moral level to always act rationally. What this means is that they believe all humans have an inherent worth of respect, dignity, and morality. Kantians believe that you should always act in the most rational way and do what is right even if there are negative consequences. But true freedom of speech does not follow this moral because humans by nature are liars. What's worse is that there are people lying and being extremely mean on the internet, the internet brings out the worst in humanity. People are more likely to be rude, mean, and act immoral when they believe that there are no consequences for their actions and that they can do it anonymously. Especially on a social media platform that is all about letting people have free reign and doing and saying as they please. People act in an extremely immoral way when they see no consequences to their actions. The categorical imperative formula of humanity is to “act in such a way that you treat humanity, whether in your own person or in the person of another, always at the same time as an end and never simply as a means” (Kant429). Most humans do not act in this way though, which is why this site will bring out the worst in people and likely become what Twitter used to be before they started to monitor what can and cannot be said on their site. It will become a mosh pit of the internet's very worst and just spiral into madness. This is exactly what the Kantian perspective wants to avoid and is the reason they will not like this social media platform.

                                                                                    VIRTUE THEORY 

Truth Social User Friendly

A virtue theorist would view Truth Social as bad and against their beliefs because Virtue Theory is an ethical mindset that you shouldn’t focus on the rules of the world but on what kind of people we should be, and what ethical examples we should copy. Someone who follows this ethical view before partaking in a particular activity or behavior would more than likely ask themselves whether someone who's engaging in this activity is manifesting appropriate virtues or character traits, is this something a kind, brave, generous, or compassionate person would do? A virtue theorist would view this platform as wrong because the internet is already filled with liars and bad behaviors and now that the lies won’t be stopped or removed it will be difficult to tell the difference between truth and lies. When we lie we create a behavior of lying and that can turn into a habit. The internet makes it easy to do this and turn good honest people into liars for attention or any number of reasons. The virtue theory is all about repetition, to repeat good activities and avoid bad ones. 

Through repetition, we acquire the habit of truth-telling. This gives special significance to individual actions. The problem with telling a lie is not (as a utilitarian would say) the damage that it does, nor (as a Kantian would say) the fact that lying amounts to disrespecting someone, but rather that in telling a lie we are likely acting in a way that we do not think is worthy of imitation, and we are contributing to the process of building ourselves into liars (concise Encyclopedia). 

So when somebody repeatedly tells lies they are more likely to lie and to think it is acceptable. So when there are 1.7 million users on a site that has said that they will not limit speech and stop lies and false information than a virtue theorist will see it as an evil construction and not use it.

JUSTIFICATIED ETHICS EVALUATION 

In my opinion the actions and decisions made by this company to make the site completely under the rules of free speech is completely ethical. The site itself and the ideology of it do go against some of the ethical beliefs but to be able to completely follow all four ethical beliefs is very difficult. I do believe that most of the reason why the social media platform fails to be ethical is not the site itself but the people who use the platform. They fail to follow ethical beliefs. The right to free speech is ethical because people should not be limited by their personal beliefs and political views. Everyone should be allowed to say what they believe under the presumption that it is the truth. The fault of this platform is that it incites liars and misinformation like the onion. This site is just 4chan but for politicians and marketed towards conservatives. People may think that they are unethical because of what is said on the sites by the users but the platform in what it is going for is ethical. 

This site would be considered ethical by all four ethics beliefs if humans were not liars and said harmful things and if people could think in a way that would be kind and nice to everybody. It is not the site that is unethical, it is the user base. To quote Robert Wright, "We are far from the only dishonest species, but we are surely the most dishonest, if only because we do the most talking." (ABC.Net) We as humans like to lie and hurt others. This is why I view the people of this site as unethical and not the concept or the site as unethical.

Truth Social now on Android

CONCLUSION

Truth Social, is a platform that was created by Donald J. Trump and it is being used primarily by conservatives, a majority of the users have a positive experience with the platform. The platform is marketed toward conservatives because they are the ones who are affected the most by how other social media platforms censor what is said and how these platforms delete messages or ban members for saying racist, homophobic, transphobic or spreading misinformation. This platform has marketed that they will do none of these things and that you as an individual can say whatever your heart desires. If you wish to lie and spread misinformation, you can. If you wish to be racist, you can, the site will not stop you. The flaw of this site is that they are having financial issues and by most ethical beliefs the users themselves are unethical. This site and its beliefs are not viewed as being unethical. This platform has had one of the fastest growths among social media platforms in recent years and it had a total of 1.7 million unique users access the site in September. This was before Android users had access to the social media platform who make up 40% of US residences. With a greater number of possible users now the site is likely to continue growing and will likely be a platform of free speech with no limitation as long as they can figure out how to gain financial stability.

REFERENCES

DesJardins, Joseph R. An Introduction to Business Ethics. McGraw-Hill Education, 2020.

“Ethical Theory: Virtue Theory.” The Concise Encyclopedia of Business Ethics, 8 Aug. 2022, conciseencyclopedia.org/entries/ethical-theory-virtue-theory/#:~:text=Virtue%20Theory%20is%20an%20ethical,exemplars%20we%20ought%20to%20imitate.

Forman-Katz, Naomi, and Galen Stocking. “Key Facts about Truth Social.” Pew Research Center, Pew Research Center, 2 Dec. 2022, www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2022/11/18/key-facts-about-truth-social-as-donald-trump-runs-for-u-s-president-again/.

Moynihan, Lydia, and Josh Kosman. “CEO behind Trump's Truth Social IPO Begs Small Investors for Support: Source.” New York Post, New York Post, 17 Nov. 2022, nypost.com/2022/11/17/ceo-behind-trumps-truth-social-ipo-begs-small-investors-for-support-source/.

Salazar, Heather. The Business Ethics Case Manual. N.d.

Steffens, Maryke. “Natural Born Liars.” ABC (Australian Broadcasting Corporation), 30 July 2003, www.abc.net.au/science/articles/2003/07/31/2857387.htm. 

Thompson, Stuart A., and Matthew Goldstein. “Truth Social's Influence Grows despite Its Business Problems.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 1 Nov. 2022, www.nytimes.com/2022/11/01/technology/truth-social-conservative-social-app.html.

Trump Media & Technology Group. “Trump Media & Technology Group Announces Partnership With Rumble Inc..” GlobeNewswire News Room, Trump Media & Technology Group, 14 Dec. 2021, www.globenewswire.com/news-release/2021/12/14/2352123/0/en/Trump-Media-Technology-Group-Announces-Partnership-with-Rumble-Inc.html.

Trump’s Truth Social Has Suddenly Shot to the Top of the App Store Rankings. www.fastcompany.com/90746113/trumps-truth-social-has-suddenly-shot-to-the-top-of-the-app-store-rankings.