When Facebook and Twitter booted Donald Trump from their platforms two years ago, the moves felt momentous. Trump was still president. His supporters had just mounted a brazen, violent attack on the U.S. Capitol. Facebook was America's preeminent social network and a hotbed of political discourse and organizing. Twitter was the president's primary megaphone.
Since then, much has changed. Trump is out of office and sidelined politically, though still influential. The wounds of Jan. 6 are unhealed but no longer fresh. Exiled from the largest platforms, Trump has retreated to a smaller social network of his own making, Truth Social, with which he claims (perhaps unpersuasively) to be satisfied.