Trump Supporting Social Media App Hacked
Arrival of Gettr social networking app, from former senior advisor to Donald Trump, is impacted by hack on its 4th July launch
A pro Donald Trump social networking app has been briefly hacked on the day of its launch in the United States.
The ‘Twitter-killer’ app is called Gettr, and is the brainchild of Jason Miller, a senior adviser to former US President Donald Trump.
According to Reuters it was hacked on its launch day on 4 July, as more than 500,000 people have registered to use the site.
Gettr hack
It seems that Gettr is a Twitter-like social platform with posts and trending topics. It has advertised itself on the Google Play and Apple app stores as a “marketplace of ideas.”
“Gettr is a non-bias social network for people all over the world,” it touts. “Gettr tried the best to provide best software quality to the users, allow anyone to express their opinion freely.”
But within hours of its launch on 4 July, the app was reportedly briefly hacked.
“The problem was detected and sealed in a matter of minutes, and all the intruder was able to accomplish was to change a few user names,” Jason Miller said in an emailed statement to Reuters.
It seems that a writer for Salon posted screenshots on Twitter of several Gettr profiles, including those of former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Miller himself, that were altered to read “JubaBaghdad was here, follow me in twitter :)”.
Asked about security on the new social media said, Miller said the situation had been “rectified.”
Former Trump adviser Steve Bannon on Sunday described Gettr as “the Twitter killer” in a post on the new site.
Miller has told Fox News earlier this week he hoped Trump would join, but that the former president was considering a number of options.
He reportedly said Trump was not funding the platform.
Social network ban
After leaving office Donald Trump had launched a website to publish content ‘straight from the desk’ of the former president of the United States.
But after only one month of operation, Donald Trump closed down the website.
Donald Trump has been banned on many social networking platforms and was widely condemned for his role in inciting a mob of his supporters to storm the US Capitol building on Wednesday 6 January, which resulted in the deaths of five people (including one police officer who was beaten to death).
In the immediate aftermath, Facebook banned Trump for 24 hours, but as the full scale of the attempted insurrection became clear, it then suspended his accounts indefinitely.
YouTube and Twitter also initially banned Trump for a limited period of time, but Twitter then opted to permanently ban Trump from its platform.
YouTube also suspended Trump’s account indefinitely.
Facebook’s Oversight Board in early May ruled that Mark Zuckerberg’s firm could keep suspending Donald Trump on Facebook and Instagram.
However, the board said Facebook must review the decision within six months, and it did object to the social network making the suspension indefinite.
Trump did not take kindly to the Oversight Board decision, and lashed out at tech firms in response, calling the bans a “total disgrace and an embarrassment to our country”.
