I spent a week on Trump's new social media app Truth Social. I felt like I was exploring a ghost town.

There isn't much happening on Donald Trump's new social media app Truth Social.

Brandon Bell/Getty Images/Christoph Dernbach/picture alliance via Getty Images

• I spent a week on Truth Social, Donald Trump's new social media app. It was like a ghost town.
• Lots of prominent right-wingers, like Tucker Carlson and Ben Shapiro, weren't anywhere to be seen.
• Much of the content in my news feed was auto-generated and many of the app's functions didn't work.

After being kicked off Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube early in 2021, former president Donald Trump pledged to launch his own social media platform. About 13 months later, on February 21, 2022, he did just that with the launch of Truth Social.

I downloaded the Truth Social app on launch day and created an account – only to be told I'd been put on a waitlist in spot number 157,120. Three weeks later, on March 14, I was finally allowed to use the app.

And I found…not very much. It was like a conservative ghost town that had been overrun by bots.

Trump Media & Technology Group, the company behind Truth Social, pitches its app as an alternative to the big social media platforms, which banned Trump for inciting violence during the US Capitol insurrection on January 6, 2021.

The signs so far are that Truth Social is a flop.

Since it launched, downloads and time spent on the app have trended downwards. It has slumped from being the number one download on Apple's US App Store to number 173, according to an analysis by Similarweb.

That's partly down to the app's lengthy waitlist, which keeps wannabe users locked out for weeks. But even when I got off the waitlist and into the app, followed the app's most popular users, and scrolled through my feed, there still wasn't much to see or do.

Here's what I found.

My suggested follows were sometimes weird, and my feed didn't contain much original content

Rosie Bradbury/Insider

After completing the setup process for new users, I was prompted to follow 50 suggested accounts.

Of course, one was Trump's account (823,000 followers). Another was Fox News anchor Sean Hannity (372,000). And another was the account of Kyle Rittenhouse (269,000), who in November last year was acquitted of all charges after fatally shooting two people during protests over the police shooting of Jacob Blake in Kenosha, Wisconsin.

Other suggested follows included the meme account "Cats with Jobs" (38,000), an account entitled "Hot Chicks Golfing" (61,000), and the official NASA account (113,000).

Once I'd followed these accounts, my feed of "truths" – what Truth Social calls posts – started filling up, but with very little original content. As I scrolled through my feed, I found that most posts were just linked-out articles on websites, posted automatically via RSS feeds.

Fox News didn't appear to have an account

Rosie Bradbury/Insider

A few media outlets, including Fox-owned tabloid TMZ and right-wing UK newspaper The Daily Mail, had Truth Social presences.

But other mainstream news organizations were missing: CNN, NBC, The New York Times, and The Wall Street Journal weren't there (though there was no shortage of parody accounts for these publications).

Interestingly, Fox News, which was once Trump's news network of choice, didn't appear to have a presence. There was an account called @FoxNewsChannel but it only had 5,920 followers, and has only posted 30 "truths" altogether.

There was an RSS aggregating bot for Fox Sports' website, which had 76,300 followers, but the account didn't appear to be affiliated with Fox itself.

Marjorie Taylor Greene and Sean Hannity were on there

Rosie Bradbury/Insider

A few prominent conservatives were active on Truth Social.

Fox News host Sean Hannity had racked up 372,000 followers and was posting several truths a day. Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene and congressman Paul Gosar respectively had 71,600 followers and 12,400 followers.

But these accounts were the exception rather than the rule. A host of prominent Republicans and conservative commentators – including Ben Shapiro and Infowars host and conspiracy theorist Alex Jones – weren't anywhere to be seen.

Through the app's profile finder, I couldn't find any verified US Senators, or Democrats from either congressional chamber.

I did find a few Republican lawmakers, though. Representatives Byron Donalds and Lisa McClain were there, with 1,000 and 233 followers respectively – but neither had posted any truths. Representative Clay Higgins was also there, with 4,320 users and seven posts.

Big news stories like the Russia-Ukraine war seemed to be getting minimal engagement

Rosie Bradbury/Insider

I could search for topic hashtags, but even hashtags you'd think would generate a lot of user engagement, like those related to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, were barely getting any traction. For example, only 1,320 people were using the #Ukraine hashtag.

One Ukraine-related hashtag I surfaced on the app was #Ukrainebiolabs.

There's a debunked conspiracy theory that Ukraine is engaging in clandestine bio weapons testing, funded by the United States. Still, the conspiracy theory has been spread by sites like Infowars and Russian disinformation channels. It was also mentioned on three separate Fox News segments hosted by Tucker Carlson. 

Still, the hashtag linked to very few posts and had limited engagement.

The direct message function wasn't working

Rosie Bradbury/Insider

Truth Social's user interface closely resembles Twitter's but has several gaps in functionality.

You can reply, reblog, and like truths but you can't add your own comments in quote-tweet style. You can however block and mute users.

There's a direct messages feature but it hadn't been activated when I used the app.

Truth Social seems to have a service for verifying users with a red check mark, but few profiles had it. Former Alaska governor Sarah Palin appears to have a Truth Social account, with one "Truth" posted and 5,010 followers, but her page wasn't verified.

Trump had posted just once

Rosie Bradbury/Insider

Even the people you'd expect to be avid users of Truth Social, like Trump himself, are barely active.

A "truth" from Trump's account, posted about a month prior, said: "Get Ready! Your favorite President will see you soon!"

The former president hadn't posted since.

Even if Trump was posting frequently on Truth Social, he still wouldn't be generating anything like the level of engagement he enjoyed on Twitter before he was banned. As of April 1, 2022, Trump had just around 823,000 followers on Truth Social – compared with 88 million followers on Twitter in early January 2021.

The app was overrun with bots

Brandon Bell/Getty Images

Truth Social was meant to be a haven for conservative discussion. It felt more like Bot Social. For example, many of the replies to Trump's solitary post were adverts for a niche cryptocurrency. And even popular hashtags turned up mainly bot-generated posts or non-organic content.

It's not impossible that Truth Social could take off at some point in the future. For now, though, it's some way off becoming the social media platform of choice for Trump and his supporters.

And other apps that attract right-wing audiences, like Gettr, a "cancel-free" app founded last year by former Trump aide Jason Miller, have more users and are getting more daily engagement.

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Russia's biggest bank has been cut out of the global financial markets — and now it's launched a cryptocurrency.

A person walks by Sberbank HQ in downtown Moscow

Pavel Golovkin/ AP

• Russia's biggest bank got permission to issue a digital currency just weeks after the invasion of Ukraine.
• Sberbank launched sbercoin as Western sanctions hampered Russia's access to the global financial system.
• The US and its allies are concerned about Russian use of crypto to circumvent sanctions.

Since Russia began its war on Ukraine, a host of restrictions have been imposed on the country, cutting it off from most of its foreign currency reserves and the global financial system.

In the midst of all this, Russia's biggest bank launched a cryptocurrency.

In early March, just days after the invasion began, trading in Sberbank shares was halted in London after they plummeted 95%. The lender was ordered to close its European business as Western sanctions threw Russia's economy into disarray.

But just two weeks later, on March 17, the Russian central bank granted Sberbank a license to issue its own cryptocurrency, according to media reports. That led to the launch of sbercoin the same day.

Russia is seen as struggling to meet dollar-denominated debt obligations, and it has said it will demand payment for its energy in rubles.

Against that backdrop, there has been speculation the sbercoin could become a quietly condoned way to exchange rubles for other currencies, and get around constraints. 

But the feasibility of this is debatable, according to Asheesh Birla, general manager at blockchain-based payments service provider RippleNet.

"It's going to be super-problematic for them to get much traction here, because they also need a liquid exchange that is going to take the Russian ruble," he told Insider.

The sanctions sparked a plunge in the ruble, and prompted Moscow to bring in capital controls. Russians scrambled to protect their wealth in foreign currencies, and a black market in dollars and euros emerged.

Birla pointed out that while Sberbank can launch a cryptocurrency, it might not help move cash in and out of the country.

Stablecoins like tether and USDC are popular — in the top five cryptocurrencies by market value, according to CoinMarketCap data — because exchanges use them to trade into and out of other cryptocurrencies. 

"I'm not sure it's going to be very helpful in terms of getting liquidity in and out of Russia," Birla said about sbercoin.

"It's like taking your own a bank account, and putting it onto a ledger. It's not all that useful, unless you can start trading it for other things. And so far, the data I saw is that it's not very liquid," he added.

Sbercoin started trading at $0.0003617 on March 17, and its trading volume in the 24 hours after the launch was just under $948,000, according to CoinMarketCap data. The coin, which mainly trades on Pancakeswap, is down around 90% since then at $0.00002211, and its 24-hour trading volume stood at $1,248 as of 12:30 p.m. ET Friday.

The potential for a Sberbank-issued cryptocurrency was first floated in 2020, when the lender began experimenting with blockchain technology. Its CEO Herman Gref said at the time the bank could look at issuing sbercoin in 2021, a local news site reported.

In September, Sberbank's deputy chairman said it hoped to register its blockchain plans with the Central Bank of Russia. But it hasn't spoken since about its crypto plans, and it didn't respond to Insider's request for comment.

The US and its allies are concerned about the use of cryptocurrency to circumvent financial sanctions on Russia, even though there's been little sign of this. 

In fact, ruble-to-crypto trading volume has fallen since the start of the invasion, when it spiked over 900% to above $70 million in five days — its highest level since May 2021 — according to Chainalysis research.

Chainalysis found in its 2021 research that Russia ranks high globally for crypto adoption. So high volumes of ruble-denominated crypto-trading may not necessarily reflect attempts to evade sanctions. 

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Jared Kushner spent 6 hours voluntarily testifying before the House Jan. 6 committee, report says

Jared Kushner.

Susan Walsh/AP

• Jared Kushner spoke to the January 6 committee for six hours on Thursday, a source told NBC News.
• He spoke himself rather than through a lawyer, and was cooperative, the source said.
• One lawmaker on the committee said the conversation with Kushner was "valuable" and "helpful."

Jared Kushner, the son-in-law of former President Donald Trump, spent six hours on Thursday testifying to the House committee investigating the Capitol riot, NBC News reported. 

A source who was in the room told NBC News that Kushner spoke virtually to the committee for six hours and did so himself, rather than through a lawyer.

'The source described Kushner as being cooperative and friendly," NBC News wrote.

Kushner served as a senior White House advisor during Trump's presidency, and was said to have appeared voluntarily before the committee. He is the first member of Trump's family to testify.

One of the committee's members said that the conversation with Kushner was helpful to the committee's work.

Rep. Elaine Luria, a Democrat from Virginia, told NPR that Kushner's conversation with the House January 6 committee was "helpful."

"I think that the committee really appreciates hearing information directly from people who have relevant facts about January 6, and the fact that Jared Kushner came as a witness is helpful to building the story of our investigation," she said.

Luria also told MSNBC that Kushner "was able to voluntarily provide information to us to verify, substantiate, provide his own take on this different reporting."

"So it was really valuable for us to have the opportunity to speak to him," she said.

Kushner was returning to Washington, DC, from Saudi Arabia when the Capitol riot started, and he did not return to the White House when he arrived, ABC News reported.

The committee is looking at Trump's actions on the day of the riot, and expects to begin public hearings in May.

Kushner's participation comes as the committee investigates a seven-hour gap in White House call logs on the day of the riot, and whether Trump used burner phones during that period.

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Ukrainian official says Russian troops have raided convoys filled with humanitarian aid: report

Civilians are being evacuated along humanitarian corridors from the Ukrainian city of Mariupol under the control of Russian military and pro-Russian separatists, on March 26, 2022.

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• A Ukrainian minister said Russian forces had intercepted convoys of humanitarian aid.
• Iryna Vereshchuk said 14 tons of aid were confiscated by the Russians, per CNN.
• The aid was being transported on 12 buses bound for Melitopol in southern Ukraine, said Vereshchuk.

Fourteen tons of humanitarian aid bound for Melitopol, a city in southern Ukraine, have been intercepted by Russian forces, said a Ukrainian official on Thursday.

Iryna Vereshchuk, the Ukrainian minister of reintegration of temporarily occupied territories, said that buses carrying humanitarian aid to Melitopol had been stopped and the aid confiscated, per CNN,

According to Vereshchuk, the aid was loaded on 12 buses filled with food and medication.

"We are negotiating for the buses to be returned and for the Melitopol residents tomorrow to evacuate using these buses," she said.

Vereshchuk added that 45 buses bound for the port city of Berdiansk, a stop on the way to the besieged city of Mariupol, were also blocked by the Russians.

The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) told Reuters that the buses were meant to deliver humanitarian supplies and bring out civilians from Mariupol, subject to the terms of a safe corridor agreed upon by Russia. 

"For logistics and security reasons, we'll be ready to lead the safe passage operation tomorrow, Friday, provided all the parties agree to the exact terms, including the route, the start time, and the duration," ICRC spokesperson Ewan Watson told Reuters.

"It's desperately important that this operation takes place. The lives of tens of thousands of people in Mariupol depend on it," he said.

Russian forces previously agreed to re-open the evacuation corridor from Mariupol to Zaporizhzhia, in line with requests from French and German leaders to let the 100,000 civilians trapped in the city evacuate. 

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GameStop shares soar 28% after the Reddit darling said it plans a stock split for the first time in 15 years

GameStop has been the centre of markets' attention this week

Spencer Platt/Getty

• GameStop shares surged 28% in pre-market trading Friday after the video game retailer said it plans a stock split.
• The Reddit darling said Thursday it wants to increase share count to pay a stock dividend and for future needs.
• The stock split, which must go to shareholders for approval, would be its first in 15 years.

GameStop shares rose as much as 28% in Friday's premarket session after the video-game retailer said it plans to seek shareholder approval for a stock split.

In an SEC filing late Thursday, GameStop said it intends to increase the number of outstanding Class A common stock to 1 billion from 300 million for two reasons.

One, the company wants to pay a dividend in the form of additional stock by splitting its shares. Two, the increased share count would be used to "provide flexibility for future corporate needs," it said in the filing.

When companies choose to implement a stock split, they are effectively increasing the overall number of outstanding shares and lowering the value of each individual share.

Stock splits have become a hot trend recently. Tesla said this week it plans to split its stock for the second time in two years. Google parent Alphabet and Amazon both announced plans for 20-for-1 stock splits this year, and stocks of all three companies surged after the moves.

GameStop shares were last up 25% at $191.82 a share, as of 4:10 a.m. ET.

After shooting higher during the Reddit-fueled trading frenzy last year, "meme stock" GameStop has since been associated with wild trading volatility. In mid-March, the stock dropped after the company reported a surprise loss during the holiday season.

But since chairman Ryan Cohen last week said he bought 100,000 shares in the company, GameStop has been on a tear — lifting the stock to a 40% gain in the last 30 days. 

GameStop has split its stock only once before in March 2007, doubling every single share held by an investor in a 2-for-1 split. 

It didn't specify the ratio by which it intends to split its stock now. It also didn't lay out the breakdown of the stock dividend that it intends to pay, nor of the funds it needs for other use. 

Additionally, GameStop said it seeks shareholder approval for a new incentive plan to support future compensatory equity issuances. This possibly suggests selling more stock to investors. 

Its stock dividend is contingent on final board approval, the company said.

Meme stocks, or heavily shorted shares that were boosted by retail investors on Reddit, have seen somewhat of a comeback in the last two weeks as traders piled into riskier pockets of the market. Each stock has rallied on varying news from the Reddit darlings.

Cohen's efforts to turn GameStop into the "Amazon of gaming" are yet to produce concrete results. Wedbush analysts say it continues to trade at levels that are "completely disconnected from the fundamentals" because of support from certain retail investors.

GameStop has yet to set a date and location for its annual shareholders' meeting, but it said these would be announced in a definitive proxy statement. GameStop's 2021 proxy was filed on April 22 last year.

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