Donald Trump isn’t known for his quiet manner, but a new social media platform headed by one of the former president’s closest advisers launched late Wednesday night. Jason Miller, Trump’s former senior adviser, is the man behind the Gettr platform.
He resigned down from his position on Wednesday night, according to Mediaite, to create the Twitter-like platform. Miller published the article on Twitter, where he is still identified as a contributor for Newsmax. After Politico announced the existence of the new site, Trump supporters concerned about social media censorship on more major platforms such as Twitter and Facebook began to join up for it.
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Gettr’s new users aren’t aware that the platform got its first funding from a foundation run by Chinese billionaire Guo Wengui and his family. Miller said Guo’s “family foundation” gave Gettr with early investment in an interview with The Daily Beast on Thursday.
Guo, who often goes by the name Miles Kwok, received some of the first seed funding from his family foundation, according to Miller.
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What is Gettr?
The platform appears to be a conventional Twitter clone. It lets users converse with other Gettr-ites and share short comments along with news stories, photographs, and videos. “GETTR is a non-bias (sic) social network for people all over the world,” the app’s description in the App Store states. GETTR did its best to give users the greatest (sic) software quality possible, allowing everyone to openly express their opinions. It also advertises a “quick sign-up process” that appears to require simply an email address. This is a violation of many social media companies’ safety protocols, which now require additional verification to eliminate bots and trolls.
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So, what about Gettr? It received a little over 1,000 downloads on the Apple App Store before the word of the indictments broke. The number was roughly the same shortly after the news of the indictment. It earned pretty unanimous praise, with an average rating of 4.9 out of 5 stars out of over 1,000 ratings. Many of the “Most Helpful” comments appeared more political than technical in their praise; with names like “Escape from digital tyranny” and “back to free speech”.