108-457: Truth Social (stylized as TRUTH Social ) is an alt-tech social media platform owned by Trump Media & Technology Group (TMTG), an American media and technology company majority-owned by 45th and 47th U.S. president Donald Trump . It has been called a " Twitter clone" that competes with Parler , Gab , and Mastodon in trying to provide an alternative to Twitter and Facebook . Truth Social uses Mastodon as its backend . The service
216-737: A dog whistle for antisemitism and terrorism . Alt-tech websites were first described in the 2010s. They became popular leading up to the early 2020s due to deplatforming , banning (including shadow banning ), and other restrictions imposed on extremists by Big Tech companies. Some right-wing groups claim that these companies censor their views. After the Unite the Right rally in August 2017, technology companies such as Google , Facebook , and Twitter were criticized for deplatforming white supremacists . Hope not Hate researcher Joe Mulhall identified
324-666: A "terrible name", Musk joked that it should be renamed "Trumpet". Following Musk's comments on Twitter, the Truth Social app rose in popularity, returning to the number 1 position for free iOS apps on Apple's App Store on April 30, with the Twitter app at number 2; DWAC shares also rose in value. DWAC's share price fell after Musk's announcement of his intention to buy Twitter. Truth Social CEO Devin Nunes later stated that Musk had been encouraged by Trump to buy Twitter; Musk denied this, saying "This
432-684: A 2021 article for the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University : We use the alt-tech term to refer to platforms that offer a promise of uncensored speech, which exist specifically to give a space for far-right, nationalist, racist, or extremist points of view, and which harbor a broad sense of grievance that speech has been "censored" for failure to be "politically correct." Many, but not all of these alt-tech sites are far-right communities. Researchers have also found that alt-tech platforms can also be used by far-right extremists for mobilization and recruitment purposes, which
540-530: A clause stating users cannot disparage the service. The New York Times expressed skepticism about whether Truth Social would be able to compete effectively against rival services. Truth Social is run by Trump Media & Technology Group , and headed by former California GOP Congressman Devin Nunes . In 2022, Talking Points Memo stated Nunes' remuneration was $ 750,000 per year. Other senior employees included chief of technology Josh Adams and chief of product development Billy Boozer, who both subsequently left
648-533: A conservative ghost town that had been overrun by bots". A U.S.-based reporter for the BBC attempted to sign up in early April and was placed on a waitlist with about 1.4 million requests ahead of him. On April 4, it was reported that Josh Adams and Billy Boozer, the platform's chief of technology and chief of product development respectively, had left the company. A report in The Washington Post stated Truth Social
756-485: A crowded marketplace of alt-tech platforms. The Times noted that alt-tech platforms claiming censorship by Twitter – such as Gettr , Parler, and Rumble – have mostly advertised themselves on Twitter. In February 2022, Trump launched a Twitter alternative, Truth Social , after establishing a messaging platform outside of Twitter, such as a now discontinued Trump blog. During development, Truth Social did not at first acknowledge using Mastodon 's open source code, and
864-498: A custom version of the free and open-source social network hosting software Mastodon as its backend , which omits several features, including polls and post visibility options. The platform uses the Soapbox frontend instead of Mastodon's native frontend. TMTG has advertised for developers with skills in using Elixir , the programming language used to build Pleroma , a social networking software akin to Mastodon. On October 21, 2021,
972-483: A customer. In July 2024, TMTG said it was purchasing streaming technology for Truth Social. Louisiana energy magnate James E. Davison is involved in the purchase under the business name JedTec LLC. In 2019, through his connections at the Trump White House, he received a $ 17 million federal grant to build roads. In August, the company announced plans for Truth+, a streaming service, without a specified launch date. It
1080-681: A global systemically important bank by the Financial Stability Board since 2011. It has been designated as a Significant Institution since the entry into force of European Banking Supervision in late 2014, and as a consequence is directly supervised by the European Central Bank . According to a 2020 article in the New Yorker , Deutsche Bank had long had an "abject" reputation among major banks, as it has been involved in major scandals across various issue areas. Deutsche Bank
1188-516: A government bailout. One of them claims that "If Lehman Brothers didn't have to mark its books for six months it might still be in business, and if Deutsche had marked its books it might have been in the same position as Lehman." Deutsche had become the biggest operator in this market, which were a form of credit derivative designed to behave like the most senior tranche of a CDO. Deutsche bought insurance against default by blue-chip companies from investors, mostly Canadian pension funds, who received
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#17328844131841296-744: A higher rate of a discount than English or French bills. The founding members were: Hermann Zwicker (Bankhaus Gebr. Schickler, Berlin); Anton Adelssen (Bankhaus Adelssen & Co., Berlin); Adelbert Delbrück (Bankhaus Delbrück, Leo & Co.); Heinrich von Hardt (Hardt & Co., Berlin, New York); Ludwig Bamberger (politician, former chairman of Bischoffsheim, Goldschmidt & Co); Victor Freiherr von Magnus (Bankhaus F. Mart Magnus); Adolph vom Rath [ de ] (Bankhaus Deichmann & Co., Cologne); Gustav Kutter (Bankhaus Gebrüder Sulzbach, Frankfurt); and Gustav Müller (Württembergische Vereinsbank, Stuttgart). The First directors were Wilhelm Platenius, Georg Siemens , and Hermann Wallich . Georg Siemens
1404-466: A party associated with Digital World. The federal probe into investors of DWAC, according to The Washington Post , discovered that a wealthy investor in the company was allegedly connected to attempts to allegedly move assets from Russia, Ukraine, and China into the Caribbean, and other intermediaries such as Hong Kong, United Kingdom and Belize. According to a government transcript, an informant referenced
1512-552: A poll saying one-third of the U.S. population polled had stated they would use a social media platform endorsed by Trump. On October 20, TMTG issued a press release announcing the platform would have its public launch in "the first quarter of 2022." It was slated to enter limited beta for Apple iOS in November 2021, and though it did not meet this schedule for its beta testing, Trump claimed in December 2021 "invited guests" were already using
1620-537: A reduction of over 90%. Visits to truthsocial.com had also fallen, from 6 million per week to 1.9 million . According to Sensor Tower, Truth Social had been downloaded 1.2 million times by late March. In early April 2022, Bloomberg News reported that shares in Truth Social's publicly traded holding company Digital World Acquisition Corp. (DWAC) had fallen 31% from the time of the app's launch in late February and 64% from its all-time high. In early April 2022, Business Insider described Truth Social as "like
1728-550: A required 9% core Tier 1 ratio after sovereign debt write-down starting in mid-2012. As of 2012, Deutsche Bank had negligible exposure to Greece , but Spain and Italy accounted for a tenth of its European private and corporate banking business with credit risks of about €18 billion in Italy and €12 billion in Spain. In 2017, Deutsche Bank needed to get its common equity tier-1 capital ratio up to 12.5% in 2018 to be marginally above
1836-463: A risk specialist from Merrill Lynch , who hired two other former Merrill Lynch risk specialists Anshu Jain and William S. Broeksmit. By the mid-1990s, the buildup of a capital-markets operation had got underway with the arrival of a number of high-profile figures from major competitors. Ten years after the acquisition of Morgan Grenfell, the US firm Bankers Trust was added. Bankers Trust suffered losses during
1944-505: A stream of insurance premiums as income in return for posting a small amount of collateral. The bank then sold protection to US investors via the CDX credit index , the spread between the two was tiny but was worth $ 270m over the 7 years of the trade. It was considered very unlikely that many blue chips would have problems at the same time, so Deutsche required collateral of just 10% of the contract value. The risk of Deutsche taking large losses if
2052-449: A supposed focus on free speech include the censorship of some liberal and conservative viewpoints, as well as the routine content moderation on other platforms, creating an " echo chamber ". Based on the report, Truth Social was found to shadowban users that disagree with the site's narrative as well as a swathe of other content including some conservative content. "Truth Social" has banned content mentioning liberal views on abortion and
2160-533: A target of SEC investigations for misrepresenting shell corporations. ARC also provided at least $ 2 million to get DWAC off the ground through a Singapore-based fund. Led by China-based banker Abraham Cinta, ARC Capital's global links included offices in Shanghai, Wuhan , Mexico City , and Jakarta , which Bloomberg News described as "surprising", due to Trump's comments on various foreign countries in office. Some investors were surprised to learn their investment money
2268-562: A website with a large proportion of Trump supporters among its userbase, was taken offline when Amazon Web Services suspended its hosting several days after the January 6 storming of the United States Capitol . It was restarted with a new host on February 15, 2021. In July 2021, an example of alt-tech hardware was announced as the " Freedom Phone "—a smartphone that promoted privacy-oriented features and an "uncensorable" app store. It
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#17328844131842376-405: Is an attempt by Trump to gain his "megaphone" back. Gettr CEO Jason Miller , a former Trump advisor, praised Truth Social and said the platform will cause Facebook and Twitter to "lose even more market share". Gab said in a statement it supports Truth Social and users of Gab can follow Trump on his reserved Gab account. Among critical reactions, Chris Cillizza of CNN wrote that the platform
2484-604: Is false. I've had no communication, directly or indirectly, with Trump, who has publicly stated that he will be exclusively on Truth Social." Musk subsequently said he intended to reverse Twitter's ban on Trump's Twitter account if his bid for the company was successful. Following Musk's comments, Nunes reiterated that Trump was committed to Truth Social, and would not rejoin Twitter even if his ban were to be lifted. Following Musk's announcement in July that he no longer intended to purchase Twitter, DWAC shares rose. Musk later went through with
2592-539: Is intended to be integrated into Truth Social's website and apps. Truth Social was launched proclaiming itself as a "big tent" platform without political censorship, allowing for "free expression" without "discriminating on the basis of political ideology". When the company was first announced in October 2021, its terms of service said the company would not be legally responsible for "the content, accuracy, offensiveness, opinions [or] reliability" of anything users might post to
2700-453: Is more dangerous than just spreading their viewpoints. Austrian researcher Julia Ebner has described alt-tech platforms as "ultra-libertarian". Deutsche Bank Deutsche Bank AG ( German pronunciation: [ˈdɔʏtʃə ˈbaŋk ʔaːˈɡeː] ) is a German multinational investment bank and financial services company headquartered in Frankfurt , Germany, and dual-listed on
2808-522: The 1998 Russian financial crisis since it had a large position in Russian government bonds, but avoided financial collapse by being acquired by Deutsche Bank for $ 10 billion in November 1998. On 4 June 1999, Deutsche Bank merged its Deutsche Morgan Grenfell and Bankers Trust to became Deutsche Asset Management (DAM) with Robert Smith as the CEO. This made Deutsche Bank the fourth-largest money management firm in
2916-471: The 2021 United States Capitol attack . In May 2021, Trump launched " From the Desk of Donald J. Trump ", a web page where he posted short tweet-like announcements; it was shut down after less than a month, with Trump's senior aide Jason Miller confirming it would not be coming back. According to Reuters , two members of the cast of Trump's TV show The Apprentice , Wes Moss and Andy Litinsky , were "central" to
3024-529: The 90 million followers he had on Twitter before his account was banned. The Daily Dot reported the Truth Social iOS app had fallen from the number one slot for downloads on the Apple App Store to number 84. The Daily Beast reported Trump was dissatisfied with the social network's progress. At the end of March 2022, TheWrap reported that weekly installations of the Truth Social app had fallen from 872,000 in its launch week to around 60,000 per week,
3132-766: The Congressional hearings on the January 6th Capitol attack . Deen Freelon and colleagues, publishing in Science in September 2020, wrote that some alt-tech websites are specifically dedicated to serving right-wing communities, naming 4chan (founded in 2003), 8chan (2013), Gab (2016), BitChute (2017) and Parler (2018) as examples. They noted that others were more ideologically neutral, such as Discord and Telegram . Discord and Telegram have been used by QAnon conspiracy theorists to promote terrorism , which contributed to
3240-629: The Frankfurt Stock Exchange and the New York Stock Exchange . Deutsche Bank was founded in 1870 in Berlin . From 1929 to 1937, following its merger with Disconto-Gesellschaft , it was known as Deutsche Bank und Disconto-Gesellschaft or DeDi-Bank. Other transformative acquisitions have included those of Mendelssohn & Co. in 1938, Morgan Grenfell in 1990, Bankers Trust in 1998, and Deutsche Postbank in 2010. As of 2018,
3348-753: The January 6th attack . Discord later worked to remove right-wing extremists from its userbase, and became a more mainstream platform. Joe Mulhall, a senior researcher for the UK anti-racism organization Hope not Hate , also distinguishes groups of alt-tech platforms: he says that some of them, such as DLive and Telegram, are "co-opted platforms" which have become widely popular among the far-right because of their minimal moderation; others including BitChute, Gab, and Parler are "bespoke platforms" which were created by people who themselves have "far-right leanings". Ethan Zuckerman and Chand Rajendra-Nicolucci, in contrast, described alt-tech services in explicitly political terms in
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3456-726: The Landesbank für Bosnien und Herzegowina in Sarajevo , together with the Société Générale de Belgique and its affiliate Banque Belge pour l'Étranger . In 1940, following the German invasion of Belgium , Deutsche Bank bought out the Belgian stake under duress and became the AJB's dominant shareholder, with 88 percent held either directly or through Creditanstalt. Deutsche Bank simultaneously took control of
3564-767: The National Bank of Greece during the Axis occupation of Greece , without however acquiring ownership out of consideration for Italian sensitivities. Through the Creditanstalt-Bankverein, Deutsche Bank also became a major shareholder of the Allgemeiner Jugoslawischer Bankverein (AJB), which had been formed in 1928 from the two former branches of the Wiener Bankverein in Belgrade and Zagreb, and of
3672-935: The Northern Pacific Railroad in the US and the Baghdad Railway (1888). In Germany, the bank was instrumental in the financing of bond offerings of steel company Krupp (1879) and introduced the chemical company Bayer to the Berlin stock market. The second half of the 1890s saw the beginning of a new period of expansion at Deutsche Bank. The bank formed alliances with large regional banks, giving itself an entry into Germany's main industrial regions. It thus formed community-of-interests partnerships with Bergisch-Märkische Bank [ de ] in Elberfeld and Schlesischer Bankverein [ de ] in Breslau , linked to
3780-687: The Pittsburgh synagogue shooting , after it was found that the sole suspect of the attack, Robert Gregory Bowers, had posted a message on Gab before the shooting, indicating an immediate intent to cause harm. Bowers had a history of making extreme, antisemitic postings on the site. After the shooting, Gab briefly went offline when it was dropped by its hosting provider and denied service by several payment processors. The popularity of alt-tech platforms surged in January 2021, when United States president Donald Trump , and many of his prominent followers, were suspended from Twitter and other platforms. Parler ,
3888-490: The Software Freedom Conservancy group stated they suspected Truth Social had violated Mastodon's AGPLv3 license by not offering its source code to all users. The Mastodon developers then formally requested that Truth Social comply with the terms of the software license, with Truth Social publishing its source code as a ZIP file on the website on November 12, 2021. On February 22, 2022, the source code download
3996-572: The alt-right , far-right , and others who espouse extremism or fringe theories , typically because they employ looser content moderation than mainstream platforms. The term "alt-tech" is a portmanteau of "alt-right" and " Big Tech ". Starting around 2015, some prominent conservatives and their supporters began to use alt-tech platforms because they had been banned from other social media platforms. Alt-tech platforms describe themselves as protectors of free speech and individual liberty , which researchers and journalists have alleged may be
4104-431: The clearing center for the three banks. Since the mid-1990s Deutsche Bank commercial real estate division offered Donald Trump financial backing, even though in the early 1990s Citibank , Manufacturers Hanover , Chemical , Bankers Trust , and 68 other entities refused to financially support him. In 2008, Trump sued Deutsche Bank for $ 3 billion and a few years later, he shifted his financial portfolio from
4212-628: The crisis summer of 1931 the Deutsche Golddiskontbank , a subsidiary of the Reichsbank , acquired 35 percent of DeDi-Bank's equity as part of a sector-wide rescue, bringing total government ownership of the bank to 38.5 percent. This did not, however, result in significant government interference in the management of the company, unlike at Dresdner Bank whose capital was near-completely nationalized. When Adolf Hitler became leader of Germany, Deutsche Bank increasingly became integrated into
4320-422: The special-purpose acquisition company formed to fund Truth Social's parent company TMTG and take it public, disclosed in October 2023 that it was refunding to investors the $ 1 billion it had raised for TMTG. A November 2023 financial disclosure by DWAC indicated that Truth Social had made a cumulative loss of at least $ 31.5 million since its inception. In March 2024, DWAC shareholders voted to merge with TMTG, with
4428-563: The 12% median CET1 ratio of Europe's 24 biggest publicly traded banks, so there would be no dividend for 2015 and 2016. Furthermore, 15,000 jobs were to be cut. In June 2015, the then co-CEOs, Jürgen Fitschen and Anshu Jain, both offered their resignations to the bank's supervisory board, which were accepted. Jain's resignation took effect in June 2015, but he provided consultancy to the bank until January 2016. Fitschen continued as joint CEO until May 2016. The appointment of John Cryan as joint CEO
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4536-415: The 12.25% required by regulators. In January 2014, Deutsche Bank reported a €1.2 billion ($ 1.6 billion) pre-tax loss for the fourth quarter of 2013. This came after analysts had predicted a profit of nearly €600 million, according to FactSet estimates. Revenues slipped by 16% versus the prior year. Deutsche Bank's Capital Ratio Tier-1 (CET1) was reported in 2015 to be only 11.4%, lower than
4644-717: The 39-story building continued for nearly a decade, and was completed in early 2011. In October 2001, Deutsche Bank was listed on the New York Stock Exchange . This was the first NYSE listing after interruption due to 11 September attacks . The following year, Josef Ackermann became CEO of Deutsche Bank and served as CEO until 2012 when he became involved with the Bank of Cyprus . Then, beginning in 2002, Deutsche Bank strengthened its U.S. presence when it purchased Scudder Investments. Meanwhile, in Europe, Deutsche Bank increased its private-banking business by acquiring Rued Blass & Cie (2002) and
4752-671: The Canadian online video platform Rumble , which was already providing cloud services to the Truth Social beta service. In April 2022, TMTG announced Truth Social would be moving to Rumble's cloud platform and announced they would be performing infrastructure upgrades to increase the platform's performance. TMTG engaged the services of Hive , a content moderation company that uses machine learning to filter postings for unacceptable content. As of June 2022, Truth Social uses Cloudflare as its CDN for both mobile and web traffic. Reuters reported Fastly had refused to take Truth Social on as
4860-757: The Creditanstalt expanded its operations into Nazi-occupied Czechoslovakia, Poland, Yugoslavia, and in Nazi-allied Bulgaria. In September 1938, following the Munich Agreement , Deutsche Bank took over the branches of Prague-based Böhmische Union Bank (BUB) in the Sudetenland . In March 1939, it forcibly took over control of the BUB itself, in which it built a majority stake complemented with prior shareholding of Creditanstalt. It also took over management control of
4968-767: The Landesbank in Sarajevo. Following the German invasion of Yugoslavia , the AJB was divided into two separate institutions, respectively the Bankverein AG Belgrad in occupied Serbia , and the Bankverein für Kroatien AG in the Independent State of Croatia . Both these banks' assets were eventually confiscated by the newly established Communist authorities in October 1944, and they were subsequently liquidated. During
5076-550: The Nazi government fully re-privatized Deutsche Bank in 1935–1937, largely out of budgetary considerations. Its name changed back to Deutsche Bank in 1937. While the Nazi policies of financial repression were largely unhelpful to the domestic business of Deutsche and other German commercial banks, its expansionary behavior created opportunities that Deutsche Bank pursued. In 1938 following Hitler's Anschluss of Austria , Deutsche Bank gradually took control of Creditanstalt-Bankverein ,
5184-511: The Nazi power structures, and fully implemented the Nazi policy of aryanization . In 1934 it dismissed its three Jewish management board members, Oscar Wassermann , Theodor Frank, and Georg Solmssen ; in 1938 it dismissed its last Jewish supervisory board member. By the end of 1938, it had been involved as an intermediary and lender in at least 363 cases of expropriation of Jewish-owned businesses. In 1938, it acquired Jewish-controlled German bank Mendelssohn & Co. under duress. Meanwhile,
5292-611: The Reichsbank, of which 744 kg came from Holocaust victims. In an effort to come to terms with its past during the Nazi era, Deutsche Bank in 1995 published a history volume that detailed its entanglement with the dictatorship. In December 1999, along with other major German companies, Deutsche Bank contributed to a US$ 5.2 billion compensation fund following lawsuits brought by Holocaust survivors; U.S. officials had reportedly threatened to block Deutsche Bank's $ 10 billion purchase of Bankers Trust if it did not contribute to
5400-958: The Russian investment bank United Financial Group (2005) founded by the United States banker Charles Ryan and the Russian official Boris Fyodorov which followed Anshu Jain 's aggressive expansion to gain strong relationships with state partners in Russia. Jain persuaded Ryan to remain with Deutsche Bank at its new Russian offices and later, in April 2007, sent the president and chairman of the management board of VTB Bank Andrey Kostin 's son Andrey to Deutsche Bank's Moscow office. Later, in 2008, to establish VTB Capital , numerous bankers from Deutsche Bank's Moscow office were hired by VTB Capital. In Germany, further acquisitions of Norisbank , Berliner Bank and Deutsche Postbank strengthened Deutsche Bank's retail offering in its home market. This series of acquisitions
5508-541: The Russian maritime company Rosmorport . $ 6 million was paid by an ostensibly separate entity, ES Family Trust, whose director was the director of Paxum Bank at the same time. As of March 2023, prosecutors in the US Attorney for the Southern District of New York were investigating the Russian ties. The Washington Post reported that Trump Media paid a $ 240,000 finder's fee as part of the arrangement, allegedly to
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#17328844131845616-430: The U.S. in 1939 after more than one year in custody. Later in 1938, Creditanstalt was jointly taken over, without compensation, by German government holding VIAG [ de ] , Deutsche Bank, and the Reichsbank , which held respectively 51 percent, 25 percent, and 12 percent of its capital. In April 1942, Deutsche Bank raised its ownership to 51 percent by acquiring a block of shares from VIAG. During wartime,
5724-701: The acquisition in 1993 of Banca Popolare di Lecco from Banca Popolare di Novara for about $ 476 million. In 1999, it acquired a minority interest in Cassa di Risparmio di Asti . In the 11 September 2001 terrorist attacks the Deutsche Bank Building in Lower Manhattan , formerly Bankers Trust Plaza, was heavily damaged by the collapse of the South Tower of the World Trade Center. Demolition work on
5832-523: The app due to low numbers of users and poor engagement, although others were willing to persevere with the app to see if things would improve. The Truth Social platform suffered from severe and persistent problems with scalability at launch, limiting the platform's growth. In early March 2022, multiple sources reported that Truth Social usage remained low, with Trump himself not having posted to his account since his first message two weeks earlier and his account having only 140,000 followers—less than 0.2% of
5940-550: The bank developed and owned the Cosmopolitan of Las Vegas , after the casino's original developer defaulted on its borrowings. Deutsche Bank ran it at a loss until its sale in May 2014. The bank's exposure at the time of sale was more than $ 4 billion, and sold the property to Blackstone Group for $ 1.73 billion. On 3 January 2014, it was reported that Deutsche Bank would settle a lawsuit brought by US shareholders, who had accused
6048-561: The bank entered retail banking by introducing small personal loans. In the 1970s, the bank pushed ahead with international expansion, opening new offices in new locations, such as Milan (1977), Moscow , London , Paris , and Tokyo . In the 1980s, this continued when the bank paid U$ 603 million in 1986 to acquire Banca d'America e d'Italia . In 1972, the bank established its Fiduciary Services Division which provides support to its private wealth division . At 8:30 am on 30 November 1989, Alfred Herrhausen , chairman of Deutsche Bank,
6156-475: The bank of bundling and selling bad real estate loans before the 2008 downturn. This settlement came subsequent and in addition to Deutsche's $ 1.93 billion settlement with the US Housing Finance Agency over similar litigation related to the sale of mortgage-backed securities to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac . Former employees including Eric Ben-Artzi and Matthew Simpson have claimed that, during
6264-672: The bank purchased the state's share of Universum Film Aktiengesellschaft ( UFA ). In 1926, the bank assisted in the merger of Daimler and Benz. The bank merged with Disconto-Gesellschaft in 1929 and rebranded itself Deutsche Bank und Disconto-Gesellschaft , sometimes referred to as DeDi-Bank. By 1930, Deutsche Bank & Disconto-Gesellschaft maintained a similar dominant position as before World War I, with 4.8 billion Reichsmarks in total deposits ahead of Danat-Bank (2.4 billion), Dresdner Bank (2.3 billion), Commerz- und Privatbank (1.5 billion), Reichs-Kredit-Gesellschaft (619 million), and Berliner Handels-Gesellschaft (412 million). In
6372-573: The bank's network spanned 58 countries with a large presence in Europe, the Americas, and Asia. It is a component of the DAX stock market index and is often referred to as the largest German banking institution , with Deutsche Bank holding the majority stake in DWS Group for combined assets of 2.2 trillion euros, rivaling even Sparkassen-Finanzgruppe in terms of combined assets. Deutsche Bank has been designated
6480-399: The basis that Deutsche may be forced to book another €3 billion to €4 billion of litigation charges in 2016." May 2017, Chinese conglomerate HNA Group became its biggest shareholder, owning 9.90% of its shares. However, HNA Group's stake reduced to 8.8% as of 16 February 2018. In November 2018, the bank's Frankfurt offices were raided by police in connection with investigations around
6588-459: The best interests" of the company or its stockholders. Following Elon Musk's acquisition of Twitter , many commentators observed that a Musk-run Twitter would be likely to reduce demand for Truth Social's services. Musk said that as of late April 2022, Truth Social iOS app downloads exceeded those of Twitter and TikTok on the same platform. He said Truth Social only existed because of Twitter's restrictions on free speech. Describing Truth Social as
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#17328844131846696-582: The beta system. Hours after the press release, a person identifying themselves as a part of the hacker collective Anonymous used Shodan to discover domains related to the company, eventually locating what appeared to be a publicly-accessible mobile beta of the service. The URL, which permitted users to sign up and use the platform, was leaked across social media. Users began trolling , creating parody accounts, and posting rants and memes . Users were able to sign up with usernames of high-profile individuals including Trump, Mike Pence , and Jack Dorsey . The link
6804-400: The collateral was wiped out in a crisis was called the gap option. Ben-Artzi claims that after modeling came up with "economically unfeasible" results, Deutsche accounted for the gap option first with a simple 15% "haircut" on the trades (described as inadequate by another employee in 2006) and then in 2008 by a $ 1–2bn reserve for the credit correlation desk designed to cover all risks, not just
6912-456: The company is to transact banking business of all kinds, in particular, to promote and facilitate trade relations between Germany, other European countries and overseas markets. Prior to the founding of Deutsche Bank, German importers and exporters were dependent upon British and French banking institutions in the world markets—a serious handicap in that German bills were almost unknown in international commerce, generally disliked and subject to
7020-682: The company. The company's headquarters are in Sarasota, Florida . It was reported to have about 40 employees in March 2022. In October 2024, ProPublica reported that a whistleblower sent a letter alerting the board that the company had outsourced programming work to Mexico, citing concerns about the quality of the work and the split from 'America first' principles. Truth Social is modeled heavily after Twitter ; users are able to make posts ("Truths", similar to tweets ) and share other users' posts ("ReTruths", similar to retweets ). The Truth Social platform uses
7128-769: The creation of the Deutsch-Asiatische Bank in Shanghai , in 1894, of the Banca Commerciale Italiana in Milan , and in 1898, of the Banque Internationale de Bruxelles . In addition, the bank rapidly perceived the value of specialist institutions for the promotion of foreign business. Gentle pressure from the Foreign Ministry played a part in the establishment of Deutsche Überseeische Bank in 1886 and
7236-430: The crisis, Deutsche failed to recognize up to $ 12 billion of paper losses on its $ 130 billion portfolio of leveraged super senior trades, although the bank rejects the claims. A company document of May 2009 described the trades as "the largest risk in the trading book", and the whistleblowers allege that had the bank accounted properly for its positions its capital would have fallen to the extent that it might have needed
7344-436: The deal, purchased Twitter in October 2022 and after a public poll resulted in a majority of people wanting the ban to be lifted, the ban on Donald Trump was lifted in November. Donald Trump would not post to Twitter again for nearly a year, stating he preferred to use Truth Social as his primary platform. Alt-tech Alt-tech is a collection of social networking services and Internet service providers popular among
7452-409: The deplatforming of Britain First in 2018, and Tommy Robinson in 2019, as two major events that spurred British social media users to join alternative platforms. Ethan Zuckerman and Chand Rajendra-Nicolucci further referenced the August 2018 deplatforming of conspiracy theorist Alex Jones as a pivotal moment. In October 2018, alt-tech platform Gab received extensive public scrutiny following
7560-535: The fast-growing industrial economies of the Rhineland and Silesia respectively; it eventually acquired the two banks in 1914 and 1917 respectively. Joint ventures were symptomatic of the concentration then under way in the German banking industry. For Deutsche Bank, domestic branches of its own were still something of a rarity at the time; the Frankfurt branch dated from 1886 and the Munich branch from 1892, while further branches were established in Dresden and Leipzig in 1901. In 1889, Deutsche Bank participated in
7668-456: The former country's leading bank. On 26 March 1938 the latter was coerced to enter a "friendship agreement" with Deutsche Bank, by which the latter secured a presence in its board of directors. Creditanstalt executive Louis de Rothschild was immediately arrested and imprisoned, deprived of his position and property, then released upon payment of $ 21,000,000, believed to have been the largest bail bond in history for any individual, and migrated to
7776-520: The founding of Truth Social's parent company, the Trump Media & Technology Group (TMTG), having allegedly pitched the idea of a social network to Trump in January 2021. To facilitate becoming a publicly traded company, a special-purpose acquisition company (SPAC) called Digital World Acquisition Corp (DWAC) was created with the help of ARC Capital, a Shanghai -based firm specializing in listing Chinese companies on American stock markets that has been
7884-565: The fund. Following Germany's defeat in World War II , the Allied authorities, in 1948, ordered Deutsche Bank's break-up into regional banks. These regional banks were later consolidated into three major banks in 1952: Norddeutsche Bank AG; Süddeutsche Bank AG; and Rheinisch-Westfälische Bank AG. In 1957, these three banks merged to form Deutsche Bank AG with its headquarters in Frankfurt. In 1959,
7992-553: The gap option but actively mismarking the value of their trades. In 2008, Deutsche Bank reported its first annual loss in five decades, despite receiving billions of dollars from its insurance arrangements with AIG , including US$ 11.8 billion from funds provided by US taxpayers to bail out AIG. Based on a preliminary estimation from the European Banking Authority (EBA), in late 2011, Deutsche Bank AG needed to raise capital of about €3.2 billion as part of
8100-429: The gap option. In October 2008, it stopped modeling the gap option and just bought S&P put options to guard against further market disruption, but one of the whistleblowers has described this as an inappropriate hedge. A model from Ben-Artzi's previous job at Goldman Sachs suggested that the gap option was worth about 8% of the value of the trades, worth $ 10.4bn. Simpson claims that traders were not simply understating
8208-467: The investment banking division to Deutsche Bank private wealth division with Rosemary Vrablic , formerly of Citigroup , Bank of America , and Merrill Lynch , becoming Trump's new personal banker at Deutsche Bank. In 2007, the company's headquarters, the Deutsche Bank Twin Towers building, was extensively renovated for three years, certified LEED Platinum and DGNB Gold. In 2010,
8316-417: The merged company trading on NASDAQ under the stock ticker DJT. In May 2024, TMTG's regulatory filing for the first quarter of 2024 reported $ 327.6 million in losses, largely resulting from taking the company public, and $ 770,000 in revenue. Former U.S. president Donald Trump raised the prospect of building a new social media platform after he was banned from Facebook and Twitter in 2021 , following
8424-412: The number of active users in the U.S. at 1 million per month. On March 25, 2024, the day TMTG's stock began trading publicly, Truth Social had 277,000 U.S. visitors, while Reddit had 32 million. By April 2024, Truth Social's daily average of active users in the U.S. had dropped 19% over the past year to around 113,000. During the same period, the daily average of active U.S. users on Twitter/X
8532-482: The platform would not completely open to the public until late March. A beta test with 500 users was in operation during February 2022. On February 21, 2022, Truth Social was released on Apple iOS , reaching number one on the App Store's top charts. Due to an extensive backlog of applicants, upon downloading the app, about 500,000 people who initially attempted to register as users were automatically waitlisted. The app
8640-439: The process as "the full Singapore with a double dip, as we call it, with having the U.K. thrown in there, just to give it that added cleanliness and polishing off." The New York Times described Truth Social as an addition to the field of already-existing alt-tech platforms. BBC journalist James Clayton stated the platform could be a more successful version of other alt-tech social media platforms like Parler and Gab and
8748-481: The publicly televised January 6 hearings that detailed events leading up to the mob violence on that day, in which Trump supporters breached the United States Congress , seeking to overturn the 2020 presidential election . According to an August 2022 report from progressive consumer rights advocacy group Public Citizen , Truth Social was found to shadowban liberal and progressive users that disagree with
8856-606: The service. Some commentators noted that this self-declared immunity appeared to rely on Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act , a law Trump firmly opposed during his presidency. The original terms of service further added that users would be forbidden to "disparage, tarnish, or otherwise harm, in our opinion, us and/or the Site". Truth Social said it had the right to "suspend or terminate your account" and "take appropriate legal action". The anti-disparagement section of
8964-482: The site's narrative, as well as a swathe of other content, including some conservative content. Truth Social has banned content mentioning abortion and the January 6 hearings. Public Citizen concluded that Truth Social's content moderation was substantially more limiting than Twitter, and said Truth Social's policies were creating an echo chamber of violent views. Trump made the platform's first post on February 16, 2022. That day, TMTG CEO Devin Nunes said he expected
9072-556: The social networking category of apps on the Apple App Store. As of October 2022, the iOS app had sunk to #75 in the social networking category. During May 2023, SimilarWeb' s ranking of the Truth Social iOS app fluctuated wildly, ranging from #18 to #153 in the Apple App Store social networking category during that period. Trump Media has not reported the number of Truth Social users. Data aggregator SimilarWeb estimated their number of visitors per month at 5 million in February 2024 and
9180-496: The stake taken in the newly established Deutsch-Asiatische Bank three years later, but the success of those companies showed that their existence made sound commercial sense. By end-1908, Deutsche was by far the largest German joint-stock bank by total deposits, with a total of 489 million Marks ahead of Dresdner Bank (225 million), Disconto-Gesellschaft (219 million), Darmstädter Bank (109 million) and A. Schaaffhausen'scher Bankverein (72 million). At that time, Deutsche Bank
9288-429: The terms of service was removed in late 2022. Sexual content remains forbidden by the terms of service. Truth Social has blocked accounts for behavior it considers harmful or inappropriate, including accounts with parody names and death threats. The platform has been widely accused of censorship. In June 2022, several accounts were banned after posting about investigations into the 2021 United States Capitol attack and
9396-573: The war, Deutsche Bank provided banking facilities for the Gestapo and, through its branch in Katowice , loaned the funds used to build the Auschwitz camp and the nearby IG Farben facilities. Deutsche Bank publicly acknowledged its involvement at Auschwitz in 1999. It also was a principal participant in the Nazi regime's gold transactions. Between 1942 and 1944, Deutsche Bank purchased 4,446 kg of gold from
9504-513: The world after UBS , Fidelity Investments , and the Japanese post office's life insurance fund. At the time, Deutsche Bank owned a 12% stake in DaimlerChrysler but United States banking laws prohibit banks from owning industrial companies, so Deutsche Bank received an exception to this prohibition through 1978 legislation from Congress. Deutsche continued to build up its presence in Italy with
9612-636: Was "falling apart", with problems mounting on multiple fronts. A Guardian article compared Truth Social with Trump Steaks and Trump Vodka . As of late April 2022, MarketWatch reported Truth Social had around 513,000 active daily users, compared to Twitter's reported active daily userbase of 217 million . Usership figures were not available, but Trump was reported on August 19, 2022, to have 3.9 million Truth Social followers. He had had 89 million on Twitter and 34 million on Facebook before being banned from both platforms. As of early June 2022, SimilarWeb reported Truth Social's iOS app as ranking #49 in
9720-522: Was a prime necessity for the establishment of credit for the German trade in what was then the world's money center. Deutsche Bank also took advantage of the Panic of 1873 by taking over a number of banks in liquidation, including the Berlin-based Deutsche Union which had itself consolidated a number of failed banks in the early 1870s. Major projects in the early years of the bank included
9828-796: Was a son of a cousin of Werner von Siemens . The bank initially operated from the first floor of a building at 21 Französische Strasse, then in 1871 moved to premises near the Berlin Stock Exchange , and in 1876 started building its massive head office complex on Mauerstrasse. The bank's first domestic branches, inaugurated in 1871 and 1872, were opened in Bremen and Hamburg . Its first overseas offices opened in Shanghai and Yokohama in 1872, and London in 1873, followed by South American offices between 1874 and 1886. The branch opening in London, after one failure and another partially successful attempt,
9936-420: Was announced, effective July 2015; he became sole CEO at the end of Fitschen's term. In January 2016, Deutsche Bank pre-announced a 2015 loss before income taxes of approximately €6.1 billion and a net loss of approximately €6.7 billion. Following this announcement, a bank analyst at Citi declared: "We believe a capital increase now looks inevitable and see an equity shortfall of up to €7 billion, on
10044-555: Was being used to finance a Trump company. The DWAC chief executive Patrick Orlando, a Florida-based financier and former Deutsche Bank trader, was also the chief executive of the Wuhan-based Yunhong Holdings/Yunhong International, registered in the offshore tax haven of the Cayman Islands . In an October 2021 SEC filing, the special-purpose acquisition company Yunhong International stated its goal
10152-419: Was closely aligned with the bank's strategy of bolt-on acquisitions in preference to so-called "transformational" mergers. These formed part of an overall growth strategy that also targeted a sustainable 25% return on equity , something the bank achieved in 2005. On 1 October 2003, Deutsche Bank and Dresdner Bank entered into a payment transaction agreement with Postbank to have Postbank process payments as
10260-451: Was doomed to fail. Noah Berlatsky, writing for The Independent , described it as a "potential threat to democracy". The Forward raised concerns of antisemitism becoming prominent on the platform, noting similar platforms have become known for hosting antisemitic content, such as Parler, Gab, and Telegram . Rolling Stone observed that while Truth Social promises to be an open and free platform, Truth Social's terms of service include
10368-470: Was down 11% to 34 million, on Reddit up 17% to 31.4 million, and on Threads up 5% to 3.5 million. The number of monthly visits from May 2023 to April 2024 was just over 4 million, down 39% compared to the period May 2022 to April 2023. Trump Media says it does not track traditional performance indicators such as daily or monthly visitor numbers, revenue per user, or ad impressions , saying in their FEC filing that they "might not align with
10476-420: Was found that the device was merely a white-label version of a Chinese smartphone produced by Umidigi , with a modified Android firmware pre-loaded with apps popular among the target audience, and a rebranded version of an open source client for Google Play Store (rather than the independent app store implied in its promotional materials). By 2022, The New York Times and The Guardian described
10584-523: Was founded in 1870 in Berlin as a specialist bank for financing foreign trade and promoting German exports. It subsequently played a large part in developing Germany's financial services industry, as its business model focused on providing finance to industrial customers. The bank's statute was adopted on 22 January 1870, and on 10 March 1870 the Prussian government granted it a banking license. The statute laid great stress on foreign business: The object of
10692-425: Was given an ultimatum by Mastodon, quietly admitting to the use of Mastodon code later on. Truth Social's launch was accompanied by substantial technical difficulties. The platform's terms of service include an incongruous clause that users may not "disparage, tarnish, or otherwise harm, in our opinion, us and/or the Site." According to a report from consumer rights group Public Citizen , alt tech platforms with
10800-713: Was installed 872,000 times during its first week, but a month later, new user signup had fallen to 60,000 per week. During that time, weekly visits to truthsocial.com fell from 6 million to fewer than 2 million . Upon its launch, the British automotive solar power company Trailar complained Truth Social's app logo closely resembled its "T" logo. The platform has been criticized for its poor performance at launch, with waitlisting users attempting to register and extended outages. A day after its launch, The Washington Post described it as "a disaster". A week after, Newsweek reported some early adopters were beginning to lose interest in
10908-520: Was killed when a car that he was in exploded while he was traveling in the Frankfurt suburb of Bad Homburg . The Red Army Faction claimed responsibility for the blast. In 1989, the first steps towards creating a significant investment-banking presence were taken with the acquisition of Morgan, Grenfell & Co. , a UK-based investment bank which was renamed Deutsche Morgan Grenfell in 1994. In 1995 to greatly expand into international investments and money management, Deutsche Bank hired Edson Mitchell,
11016-414: Was later taken offline. According to The Guardian , in December 2021, two loans totaling $ 8 million (~$ 8.87 million in 2023) were paid to Trump Media from obscure Putin -connected entities as the company was "on the brink of collapse". $ 2 million was paid by Paxum Bank , part-owned by Anton Postolnikov, a relation of Aleksandr Smirnov, a former Russian government official who now runs
11124-425: Was launched on February 21, 2022. Since mid-2022, Truth Social has been facing financial and regulatory issues. The application was initially not available on Google Play because of violations of Google policies prohibiting content with physical threats and incitement to violence, but was approved for Google Play in October 2022 after agreeing to enforce policies against incitement. As of March 6, 2023, it
11232-551: Was liquidated in December 2021, while its backers remained involved with the DWAC and Truth Social venture. An additional backer of the Trump social media venture, becoming the CFO of Digital World Acquisition, was Brazilian parliamentarian Luiz Philippe of Orléans-Braganza , a monarchist allied with Jair Bolsonaro . In October 2021, TMTG published a document outlining the Truth Social platform, citing
11340-551: Was moved to the website's legal section. A mirror of the source code is available at GitHub , where it was uploaded by uninvolved individuals. The service is designed for access by web browsing and as an app for both Android and Apple devices: The Truth Social service was originally hosted on RightForge , a company aimed at providing internet hosting for conservative causes that describes itself as "The first global Internet infrastructure company committed to American principles online". In December 2021 TMTG said it had partnered with
11448-473: Was ranked number 101 in Apple's App Store rankings for social media apps, and SimilarWeb ranked its website as number 203 in their "News & Media Publishers" category, behind Gab at number 154, but ahead of Parler at number 1,052. Trump estimated in an April 2023 personal financial disclosure that the site's value ranged from $ 5 million to $ 25 million. Digital World Acquisition Corporation (DWAC),
11556-642: Was referred to as one of the four "D-Banks" (all of which had names starting with a D) that dominated German commercial banking, together with Darmstädter Bank, Disconto-Gesellschaft, and Dresdner Bank. During World War I and in its immediate aftermath, the operations of Deutsche Bank in Brussels, London, Tokyo and Yokohama were expropriated; conversely, its activity in the Ottoman Empire expanded considerably, and it greatly expanded its footprint in Germany. In 1919,
11664-504: Was to "capitalize on growing opportunities created by consumer/lifestyle businesses that have their primary operations in Asia." Reuters quoted a deleted presentation from 2020, in which ARC Capital said it "was able to craft a Wuhan-based SPAC sponsored by a family office, structured by ARC in Singapore, to allow our client to enjoy the flexibility and benefits of the U.S. financial markets." Yunhong
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