Donald Trump-owned social media web site, Truth Social, has seen an enormous inflow of curiosity and new customers following final week’s widely-publicized FBI raid on the previous president’s Florida residence.

Between July 31 and Aug 7, 2022 the app was downloaded fewer than 20,000 instances. Yet final week, that quantity jumped as much as greater than 100,000 downloads, in accordance with stats supplied to Gizmodo by data.ai, a market analytics firm, and first reported on by Vice.

The platform has confronted quite a few technical points from the very begin, together with lengthy waitlists, outages, and safety flaws. It remains to be not obtainable on Android. And even Trump has appeared lower than all-in on his personal social media web site, leaving a contract loophole open to rejoin Twitter, ought to the chance ever current itself.

However, even with these ongoing issues, Truth jumped from the sixtieth hottest social app in July as much as #37 this month to date, and have become the second most downloaded “social microblogging app,” in accordance with information.ai.

On the day that it launched, Truth Social was downloaded from the iOS app retailer 169,000 instances, nevertheless it hasn’t reached almost that top since. As of August 15, the app has been downloaded a complete of about 3 million instances—a teeny-tiny quantity in contrast with the a whole bunch of tens of millions of Twitter customers. And has a considerably smaller user-base than different platforms additionally common amongst Trump supporters and the far-right, like Parler, which has about 16 million registered customers, according to Earthweb.

On August 8, the FBI executed a search warrant of Mar-a-Lago to retrieve categorised supplies that Trump had reportedly improperly taken from the White House—together with doable paperwork associated to nuclear weapons.

Following the raid, a person armed with a nail gun, Ricky Water Shiffer, attempted to attack the FBI workplace in Cincinnati, Ohio and was shot and killed by police. Prior his dying Shiffer posted extensively about his plans and motivations on Truth Social, in accordance to another Vice report.

Trump has been posting rather more often on his platform within the aftermath of each the raid and assault try, doubtless contributing to the rising obtain numbers.

Those latest posts embrace some confusing “endorsements” of Democratic candidates Dan Goldman and Carolyn Maloney that Trump made earlier this week. Both have been outspoken critics of his (and instantly concerned in official proceedings towards him), and the posts had been interpreted by many as deeply sarcastic. Though, there’s an opportunity they might’ve additionally been an earnest try to sway assist away from the candidates, whose goal audiences are doubtless put-off by the considered Trump’s approval.

Maloney is operating for re-election in New York’s twelfth Congressional District, and is performing chairwoman of the House Oversight Committee, which remains to be investigating Trump.

Goldman, who’s operating for Congress in New York’s newly redistricted tenth District, is a lawyer who served as lead counsel within the first impeachment inquiry into Trump. If Goldman had been to win his election, he would even be one of many wealthiest members of Congress. He is the inheritor to the Levi Strauss & Co. fortune, and has a internet value of as much as $253 million according to Bloomberg.

So, who is aware of, perhaps Trump finds some kinship with him, and does need Goldman to win over different, more progressive candidates in spite of everything. We, at Gizmodo, don’t faux to know the thoughts of Donald Trump. But if you happen to handle to navigate the wait lists and technical points to get on Truth Social, you should have a window in {that a} (comparatively) few, however rising variety of others share.