Reporter Says He Accessed Internal Beta Version of Trump’s TRUTH Social App and Registered For ‘@realDonaldTrump’ Username

Photo by CHRIS DELMAS/AFP via Getty Images

A reporter said on Sunday that he accessed an internal beta version of former President Donald Trump‘s TRUTH Social app and managed to secure the “@realDonaldTrump” handle on it.

The app, promoted as favoring free speech, is supposed to launch tomorrow. TMTG CEO Devin Nunes said Sunday that the Apple store rollout will happen “this week,” and the platform will be “fully operational at least within the United States” by the end of March.

Mikael Thalen, a reporter for The Daily Dot — a publication covering Internet culture — emphasized that the beta he was on was for the company’s internal use (such as “to find bugs before updating the app”) and is separate from the beta version hundreds of testers have been using. Trump is using the @realDonaldTrump handle on the mobile beta.

According to Thalen, he was able to register on the internal beta as “@realDonaldTrump” and “upload the same profile image & banner as Trump.”

Thalen said he has since lost access to his account.

Thalen said his masquerading as Trump on the internal beta does not impact the @realDonaldTrump account on the user-tested beta, but noted his reporting raised “serious security questions” about the app.

Among those concerns is that he found usernames and passwords on the publicly accessible site, including “TMTG’s Slack channel as well their username and password for the site.”

Per Thalen, the beta site has been used in part to test TRUTH Social’s content moderation and teach the site’s system to flag content containing pornography, firearms, racial slurs, and more.

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