Truth Social Downloads Soar Amid Trump’s Criticism of FBI Mar-a-Lago Search

Donald Trump’s social media app Truth Social saw downloads spike after the FBI searched his Mar-a-Lago, Florida residence last week to retrieve White House documents containing sensitive information.

App downloads increased 550 percent the week after the search compared to the week before, according to information VICE News obtained from Data AI, a company that tracks app downloads.

Trump used the platform to rally his supporters against the FBI and shared an article promoting the idea that if he becomes president again, he would get revenge on those involved in the search, according to VICE News. The article, a Wall Street Journal The comment, titled “Mar-a-Lago payback will be brutal,” was shared by the former president on his Truth Social account.

The FBI has come under criticism after the Mar-a-Lago search, with the platform reportedly sending out a push notification last week to promote an article by Breitbart, a conservative website, that linked the names of two to the search FBI agents involved, CNN correspondent Donie O “Sullivan reported it.

The app, which went live on Feb. 21, was downloaded fewer than 20,000 times in the week leading up to the Aug. 8 FBI raid, averaging around 2,500 downloads daily from Apple’s App Store. But then it was downloaded 107,500 times. with an average of 13,400 downloads per day in the week following the search.

Data from Similarweb, obtained by Sky News, also showed that app downloads rose to 6,545 from 1,386 the day after the FBI raid.

The FBI search was conducted with the approval of Attorney General Merrick Garland to look for top secret (TS) and sensitive compartmentalized information (SCI) and other classified documents. That Washington Post reported that some of the records found related to nuclear weapons, but Trump has called this reporting a “hoax.”

In addition, sources recently said news week that the search came after authorities received a tip from an informant identifying the type of top-secret documents still in Trump’s possession and their location.

Meanwhile, Trump turned to Truth Social for his take on what he called the “unannounced raid.” The app was one of the most downloaded apps on the Apple App Store on the day of its launch in February, when it recorded 170,000 daily downloads.

Trump created the platform to move away from what he called “big tech tyranny.” The former president used to be vocal on Twitter and gained tremendous popularity since joining in 2009 until he was banned from the platform for life after his supporters stormed the US Capitol in January 2021.

Despite his attempt to create an alternative to existing social media platforms, Trump has less than 1 percent of the follower base he used to have on Twitter, with around 835,000 followers on Truth Social.

news week contacted Trump’s media office for comment.