This Pew Research Center analysis provides data on Truth Social as Donald Trump runs for president in 2024. It’s based on an October 2022 Center study that examined Truth Social and six other alternative social media sites — BitChute, Gab, Gettr, Parler, Rumble and Telegram – using a multi-method approach. Sites were included in the study if they had publicly accessible posts, were mentioned in news media, and had at least 500,000 unique visitors in December 2021.
The survey portion of the study was conducted May 16-22, 2022, among 10,188 US adults. All those who completed the survey are members of the Pew Research Center’s American Trends Panel (ATP), an online survey panel recruited through national, random sampling of residential addresses. That way almost all American adults have a chance of selection. The survey is estimated to be representative of the US adult population by gender, race, ethnicity, party affiliation, education and other categories. Read more about the ATP methodology here. Respondents were asked about their familiarity with each of the seven social media sites studied. Those who reported hearing about these sites were also asked if they use the sites and get news there, how they feel about them, and more.
The margin of sampling error for the full sample of 10,188 respondents is plus or minus 1.6 percentage points; the margin of sampling error for the 587 alternative social media news consumers is plus or minus 7.0 percentage points; and the margin of sampling error for the 219 true social news consumers is plus or minus 11.9 percentage points.
The audit of alternative social media sites was first conducted in April 2022. To conduct the analysis, a team of researchers were trained on a variety of variables that examined each site’s features such as its privacy and moderation policies. The researchers reexamined each country in August-September 2022 (Truth Social also reviewed in November 2022) and updated the findings with any changes.
The account content analysis examines a sample of 200 accounts featured on each of the seven sites included in this analysis, for a total of 1,400 accounts examined. Featured accounts were drawn from the 5% of accounts with the highest number of followers on each site. A team of trained researchers analyzed these 1,400 sample accounts to determine who runs the account, their political orientation, values and other characteristics. For more details on how accounts were identified and sampled, read the methodology.
The content analysis of posts examines the topics discussed and sources cited in 585,470 posts published in June 2022 by 1,400 sampled accounts (only 1,147 of these accounts posted at least once that month). The researchers used a set of unique keywords to identify posts about five different topics – abortion; guns, gun control and shootings; the January 6 attack on the US Capitol; LGBTQ issues; and vaccines. The researchers looked at unique two- and three-word phrases that were commonly used in posts about each topic. The researchers then examined the unique domains linked to in these posts to identify the types of resources these accounts were using.
Here are the questions used in the study, detailed tables and methodology.
The Pew Research Center is an affiliate of The Pew Charitable Trusts, its primary funder. This is the latest report in the Pew Research Center’s ongoing inquiry into the state of news, information and journalism in the digital age, a research program funded by The Pew Charitable Trusts, with generous support from the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation .
