Geoffrey Smith 

Investing.com — Twitter and Facebook both fell after ex-President Donald Trump made an announcement that he was starting a new social media firm to compete with their current dominance. 

Facebook stock fell 0.3%, while Twitter stock fell 0.8%, after Trump said he would launch a plaftorm called TRUTH Social under the aegis of his Trump Media & Technology Group “to stand up to the tyranny of Big Tech.”

A merger is planned to make the company public. Digital World Acquisition (NASDAQ:), A special-purpose acquisition company, which was listed in September. DWA shares increased by 45% following the release of the news. 

Trump’s 2016 success in the U.S. presidential race was largely due to his access to and control of social media. The news is coming amid reports that Trump may run for the presidency again in 2024. However, a successful campaign will be much more challenging without the access to major platforms such as Twitter and Facebook. After Trump’s supporters invaded Congress on January 6, in an effort to stop Joe Biden from certifying his election win, both platforms ban Trump. 

His own platform will give him the opportunity to speak on behalf of his cause, but it’s not clear if he can replicate the impact he enjoyed with swing voters via a right-wing platform. Gab and Parler are two other platforms which have attempted to’rebalance’ social media. However, they have not been able to attract large readerships and had little impact on the advertising revenue of the bigger platforms.

Facebook is currently under threat from others as it rumours that the company will drop a toxic brand from its corporate identity. The District of Columbia Attorney General filed Wednesday a motion to include Mr. Zuckerberg in a consumer protection lawsuit that was filed over Facebook’s role in the Cambridge Analytica incident, in which millions of people were hacked without their consent. In this case, private shareholders filed lawsuits for damages. The suit claimed that Facebook had settled the Federal Trade Commission’s charges for more money than it needed to keep Zuckerberg from the docket.