Truth Social is owned by Trump Media & Technology Group and is a MAGA social media platform. Every day, Donald Trump shares something on the social media platform, at all hours of the day or night. He shares so much that his followers automatically believe he is right. Unlike X (formerly Twitter), Truth Social allows him to make lengthy posts, giving his opinion on everything.
However, psychological experts deem Truth Social a questionable social network for several reasons. However, the most important reason is that it is an “echo chamber,” which “is an environment in which people seek out and consume information that reinforces their existing beliefs, values or opinions,” said Manahil Riaz, a psychotherapist in Houston and the owner of Riaz Counseling.
Claire Robertson is an assistant professor of psychology, focusing on political polarization and extremism at Colby College in Maine. During the 2016 election, echo chambers became a more common topic of conversation. “And it was … the first acknowledgment that what we see online is not necessarily representative of the offline world,” Robertson said.
When online, people tend to curate their friends, the news we see and the brands we follow. If you don’t want to get updates from an ex, you don’t have to, and that’s great, except it isn’t so great when it comes to news and politics.
“The only content that we’re seeing online is from people who agree with us. That was the original kind of conceptualization of an echo chamber,” Robertson said.
Meanwhile, as noted by HuffPost, social media tends to show information from people who share out believes. However, sometimes we still see content from people or news that we don’t agree with – and this is not in a helpful way.
“It does happen, but for the most part, we see opinions from people who are most extreme versions of either side of the aisle. And then that can become substantiated in our minds as what’s normative or representative of those different groups of people,” Robertson said.
Truth Social was launched in 2022, after Trump got kicked off of Facebook and Twitter, following the January 6 insurrection.
“Facebook, Instagram and TikTok and everything, they can become echo chambers, right? They just house echo chambers on both sides, whereas something like Truth Social versus Bluesky [which tends to be more left-leaning], they are much more specific to one side,” Robertson explained.
Moreover, Robertson said the platform was created with the intention of being a conservative outlet. Social media platforms like Facebook and X were “originally designed to be like a digital town square. That’s the line that a lot of these tech companies still say,” Robertson said.
These platforms were intended to attract people from different areas and backgrounds and have them speak to each other. “There was this kind of hope that it would improve democracy. … That obviously did not happen,” Robertson added.
“Echo chambers are environments that might appeal to some people, because there is a sense of safety, comfort and validation,” Riaz said. “As humans, we love those three things. In these spaces, people are surrounded by beliefs and perspectives that align with their own, which can make their world feel very confirmed and secure.”
“When we’re engaging with opposing viewpoints, that requires a significant amount of emotional and cognitive effort,” such as discomfort, curiosity and tolerance, and anyone who prioritizes familiarity may be drawn to an echo chamber.
“These environments can affirm a sense of reality, a sense of belonging, while protecting their ideas. To be exposed to opposing ideas can be very destabilizing, like, ‘Who am I if I’m not Republican?’ My identity is so tied with this that it almost feels like a death. It almost feels like it’s a threat,” Riaz noted.
This can happen to anyone, whether leaning left or right, and even extends to opinions outside of politics.
“Any time that people are exposed to an extremely biased selection of something — opinions people — they start to think that’s A: how everything is, and also B: how everything should be,” Robertson said. “And neither of those things are inherently true.”
“I also think that we make the most mistakes when we don’t have complete information,” Robertson said. “We aren’t skeptical of information that we agree with. We take that as ground truth. And I think that’s where the echo chambers can really be a problem.”
According to Riaz, people in echo chambers tend to not question what they are seeing, and this is a problem. Echo chambers promote the idea that our own perspective is the “absolute truth.”
“There’s little room for alternative viewpoints or critical reflection,” she said. “Within that echo chamber, ideas are repeated, reinforced, creating this black-and-white understanding of the world, and this is harmful because most social and political cultural issues are so complex and nuanced that they rarely have a single or a simple explanation.”
“Whatever the contradicting information is, it could be labeled as an exception rather than a meaningful challenge that exists,” Riaz said. “So the mindset can reinforce harmful stereotypes and prejudice.”
Meanwhile, with Truth Social, Trump tends to gatekeep information on the platform, while only sharing updates on this website, which doesn’t reacj everyone.
“Gatekeeping information is usually not good, just from history … things tend to get more equitable when information is shared more widely,” Robertson said.
Basically, with reinforcing false beliefs, introducing prejudice and stereotypes, the Truth Social echo chamber is not an ideal space for anyone, especially a president, but experts feel there are several reasons he may be drawn to this kind of social media space.
“I think he wants his worldview to be reiterated. I think he’s power hungry, and he can’t go to the general public and say something, that he has to create an audience for himself,” Riaz said.
Riaz said that typically, Trump surrounds himself with “yes” people, those that agree with everything he says. However, when someone does disagree with the president, it causes problems.
This was especially so recently, when Rep. Sen. Tim Scott and Katie Britt criticized Trump for his posting of a racist video about the Obamas. When this happened, Trump apparently lambasted them.
When Truth Social was created, it was planned to be a conservative platform, and an “alternative” version of social media. Here, Trump’s thoughts are backed up, instead of being questioned, as they most probably should.
He turns to Truth Social as a place where people will listen and “treat me like the entitled person I am,” Riaz said.
