Gerzof Richard on Trump’s Social Media App Truth Social, Facebook Papers: ABC News & Christian Science Monitor

Communication Studies faculty and CEO of BIGfish PR David Gerzof Richard weighed in on former President Donald Trump’s new social media app Truth Social, announced last week. While the product may make a lot of money, experts say it may very well be a spreader of misinformation.

Gerzof Richard says “He is a marketer, he is always looking for ways to monetize. He can monetize his followers and I think that’s exactly what he is doing.”

He additionally notes:

Donald Trump’s campaign and his brand has always been about creating a truth that benefits him. If it’s the Trump algorithm, the opposition and dissenting voices are not going to pop up in the feed. Trump will always come first. It doesn’t matter what information you want, you will always get what Trump says at the top of the feed.

Read the ABC News piece.

Gerzof Richard also contributed to a Christian Science Monitor Piece about the Facebook Papers, leaked documents by a former employee that exposed research from the company that shows its practices are harmful.

I guess what surprises me most is sort of the short-sightedness that you see here. Enabling circumstances for conflict – maybe in the short term it sells ads, but in the long term, it hurts the country, it hurts the general business climate and the economy, and in turn, that will hurt Facebook. That’s the surprise to me, that the ‘smartest people in the room’ didn’t see that.