Archive for March, 2022

Nuclear Issues in the Ukraine Crisis – Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation

**UPDATED WITH ADDITIONAL FIVE QUESTIONS AT THE BOTTOM, MARCH 2, 2022**

By Samuel M. Hickey and Monica Montgomery

As the world watches Russias illegal invasion of Ukraine, nuclear issues and the risk of escalation are abuzz in the news and on social media. We have received myriad questions about the nuclear implications of this crisis and wanted to share answers to some of the most common questions.

We will update this page as new questions and information arise, and you can submit questions to be answered by tweeting at @nukes_of_hazard or via this short survey.

The risk of a nuclear war remains low at this moment. Right now, the direct fighting is limited to Russian and Ukrainian forces. Ukraine does not have nuclear capabilities, nor is it a NATO ally or part of the U.S. nuclear umbrella.

While Russia does possess a vast nuclear arsenal, it is highly unlikely to use nuclear weapons against Ukraine. Russian President Vladimir Putin has, however, made explicit threats of nuclear use in an attempt to deter Western nations from coming to the aid of Ukraine. Whats more, this conflict borders several NATO allies who benefit from the U.S. nuclear umbrella, providing an all too real reminder that, in the fog of war, an accident or miscalculation could escalate and draw nuclear powers into conflict with one another.

The risk of escalation that could lead to a nuclear war in Europe is real and cannot be understated. This moment shows that a war between Russia and NATO including the United States is not inconceivable, but a frighteningly real possibility. While this risk is still extremely low, it is not zero.

Yes. In his speech full of baseless claims and false pretexts for invasion, Russian President Vladimir Putin boasted that todays Russia remains one of the most powerful nuclear states with a certain advantage in several cutting-edge weapons. He said, In this context, there should be no doubt for anyone that any potential aggressor will face defeat and ominous consequences should it directly attack our country.

This threat is extremely provocative and concerning. It flies in the face of Russian statements going back to the Cold War and as recently as January 2022 that a nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought. Further, it demonstrates the myth that nuclear deterrence is an instrument of peace and stability and instead highlights how nuclear weapon states use their arsenals as a shield to carry out conventional aggression or proxy wars.

Three days after this speech, Putin put his nuclear forces in a special regime of combat duty. A great deal of uncertainty surrounds what exactly this posture entails as it is unprecedented, but experts speculate that it at least includes shifting the command and control structure into high alert. However, according to Russian nuclear weapons scholar Pavel Podvig, it is not something that suggests that Russia is preparing itself to strike first, though.

No, Ukraine has never actually possessed its own nuclear weapons arsenal. Following the breakup of the Soviet Union in 1991, Soviet strategic bombers and associated bombs and tactical nuclear weapons that were still under Moscows command and control were left on Ukraines territory. Ukraine did not have the ability to use the weapons nor the facilities to store and maintain them, but, given enough time, Ukraine likely could have reverse engineered the weapons, although at great expense.

Instead, Ukraine then used the Soviet nuclear weapons as a bargaining chip in negotiations for economic aid and security assurances that ultimately led to the 1994 Budapest Memorandum with Russia, the United States and the United Kingdom. In that agreement, Russia and the other signatories pledged to respect the independence and sovereignty and the existing borders of Ukraine, which Russia violated in 2014 and now again.

If Ukraine had retained the nuclear weapons, it would have paid a steep price, in terms of the economic and security aid and diplomatic support that Western nations have provided over the years. To say that Ukraine could be the country it is today but with nuclear weapons is false, but it is also true that Putins illegal invasion of Ukraine has done serious damage to the credibility of the nuclear non-proliferation regime. Ukraine made the responsible and only rational decision to repatriate Soviet nuclear weapons for its own self-interest and collective security.

The danger is small. Chernobyl is inside of a large exclusion zone meaning the space is uninhabited and its distance from major population centers would mitigate the consequences of a second nuclear accident.

Still, there are two potential areas of concern.

The first is the shelling of the nuclear reactor that melted down back in 1986, the worst nuclear accident in history. However, in November 2016, the worlds largest movable metal structure was slid over Chernobyls nuclear power plant to contain further radiation leaks. It is reported that the containment structure is secure against tornadoes and covers gaps in the initial sarcophagus. The second is the disturbance and dispersion of radiation in the ground. After Russia occupied Chernobyl, higher radiation measurements were taken; likely due to Russian trucks and tanks kicking up radiation in the ground. However, the UNs nuclear watchdog (the IAEA) confirmed that higher radiation measurements do not pose any danger to the public. It is unlikely that Russia would intentionally target any reactors.

On Sunday, February 27, a referendum in Belarus an effective Russian dependency approved a new constitution that would remove current language guaranteeing its neutrality and non-nuclear status, and therefore allow Russia to station its nuclear weapons on Belarus territory.

Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko said, if you (the West) transfer nuclear weapons to Poland or Lithuania, to our borders, then I will turn to Putin to return the nuclear weapons that I gave away without any conditions. Similar to Ukraine, Belarus inherited nuclear weapons following the breakup of the Soviet Union, but transferred all of them to Russia and codified its nuclear-free status under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).

It remains to be seen whether Russian nuclear weapons will in fact be deployed to Belarus, particularly in light of the fact that NATO has indicated no plan to move any nuclear assets. Russia doing so would come with enormous implications for European security, as Russian nuclear forces in Belarus would not have a deterrent role that is already filled by strategic forces but would be there only to threaten Europe with destruction.

No. In the week leading up to Russias invasion of Ukraine, Putin said Ukraine aspires to acquire nuclear weapons and it is only a matter of time as Ukraine has laid the groundwork for this since the Soviet era and Western patrons may help it acquire these weapons to create yet another threat to Russia. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov repeated these allegations on March 1.

All of these claims are absurd. This is simply the latest pretext in Putins web of conspiracy theories to excuse his illegal and unprovoked invasion. Ukraine does not possess nuclear weapons nor any other weapons of mass destruction, is not actively seeking them from allies, nor does it have the domestic technological means to develop nuclear weapons. Ukraine sealed off this pathway in the 1990s (see above). Ukrainian nuclear power facilities are subject to the full scope of IAEA safeguards, and there is no way Kyiv could so much as start down the pathway without the world knowing.

Talks are on hiatus.

In June 2021, Presidents Joe Biden and Vladimir Putin met in Geneva and released a joint statement on strategic stability, outlining a path forward for nuclear arms control and risk reduction. Several working groups were established that met over the following months to develop a baseline understanding and to facilitate dialogue on security concerns. The most recent round of talks convened in January 2022 to discuss Russias military buildup on the Ukrainian border and Russian proposals for security guarantees.

After Putins invasion of Ukraine, U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman confirmed that, at this stage, I see no reason for a Strategic Stability Dialogue. A rupture in relations now, however, does not reduce the need for a dialogue on nuclear risks once tensions have decreased. In fact, Russias threats to withdraw from the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (New START) and conduct nuclear strikes only heighten the need to determine explicit rules of the road ahead.

Putin is using his nuclear weapons as a shield to perpetrate a conventional invasion by keeping those who want to come to Ukraines aid at bay. Russias international isolation is a consequence of Putins reckless invasion of Ukraine, but eventually, the parties must come back to the table. Nuclear blackmail cannot be used to establish precedents like a sphere of influence, and the way to achieve sustainable guarantees is through hard-nosed diplomacy.

Yes. The United States currently maintains an estimated 100 tactical or non-strategic nuclear weapons at six NATO air bases in Italy, Turkey, Belgium, Germany and the Netherlands, for use by U.S. and allied aircraft. The weapons are not armed or deployed on aircraft, but instead are kept in underground vaults and the codes to arm them remain in American hands.

The weapons are a part of the U.S. pledge to support the collective defense of allied NATO nations with its own armed forces and, critically, nuclear weapons. U.S. nuclear weapons have been deployed in Europe since the mid-1950s and reached an all-time peak of 7,300 during the height of Cold War tensions in 1971. Although these weapons have minimal effect on U.S. deterrence, they are seen as vital evidence of U.S. commitment to collective security by many allies.

Russian officials, including Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov on March 1, have long criticized the United States deployment of nuclear weapons in Europe as a violation of the NPT. In the negotiations preceding the invasion of Ukraine in December 2021, Russia included the removal of U.S. deployed nuclear weapons in Europe on their list of proposed security guarantees, to which the United States responded that it was prepared to discuss this disagreement.

No. Ukraine is not part of NATO, so the United States is not treaty-bound to intervene militarily on Ukraines behalf and does not guarantee to use the U.S. nuclear deterrent to defend Ukraine. The United States does maintain positive security assurances with its NATO allies, in that it promises to come to the aid of one of them, even possibly with the use of nuclear weapons, if they are attacked.

With that in mind, U.S. nuclear deterrence was never on the line in Ukraine, so Putins invasion, though abhorrent and illegal, did not somehow crack or subvert the U.S. nuclear deterrent. Likewise, it is false to suggest that if the United States had more nuclear weapons, either in Europe or at home, then Putin would have been deterred from invading Ukraine. Both the United States and Russia currently have enough nuclear weapons to inflict catastrophic harm, so more nuclear weapons would be irrelevant to the United States ability to deter Russian aggression in Ukraine.

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Nuclear Issues in the Ukraine Crisis - Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation

Propaganda in the age of no-nonsense Twitter – The Maneater

As the war in Ukraine began, Russia added to the disinformation conversation with their propaganda machine.

Despite platforms like Twitter and Instagrams guidelines indicating the absolute ban on false and misleading information, Kremlin-backed media users continued to post on social media.

In May 2020, Twitter began to add warnings to posts containing information about COVID-19. The company released a statement on their website stating, You may not use Twitters services to share false or misleading information about COVID-19 which may lead to harm.

The warnings came following the spread of COVID-19 misinformation from former President Donald Trump and some senators and house members.

After the Jan. 6 insurrection in 2021, former President Trump was removed from Twitter, and his official account was censured as well. Many other platforms followed and permanently suspended Trump and began working toward new information policies.

Despite the suspension of these accounts, the damage had already occurred. Trumps legion of misinformation spread like wildfire, and thousands of users post misinformation about COVID-19 and other topics daily.

Twitter and other platforms have a hard time combating these issues because of the idea of free speech. Legally, users do not have a right to free speech on private social media platforms. Even though the law is on the medias side, misinformation and fraud continue to spread.

On Feb. 24, Vladimir Putin announced a special military operation in Ukraine. Shortly after, multiple missile strikes occurred across the country. This invasion caused thousands of Ukrainian citizens to flee toward Poland and other surrounding countries.

Now more than ever, Ukraine is in dire need of the world knowing what Russia is concocting, but the media still holds multiple errors.

Russian state-affiliated Twitter accounts continue to post misleading biased information after Twitter promised they would prohibit Kremlin-sided advertising.

One major account, RT News, is controlled by the Russian government and posts updates on Putin and the recent activity in Ukraine. The account has over 3 million followers, and users frequently interact with posts. A post made on Feb. 28 showed a video of a Ukrainian residential building, which the Russian media claimed Ukraine had shelled. Later, multiple media outlets confirmed Russia had shelled the neighborhood.

Accounts from TikTok have made revenue from the creator fund off of old videos and films from video games, reposting a piece from Arma 3, a realistic-based war game. The post has been shared over 12 thousand times from TikTok and has crossed over to Twitter and a Spanish news broadcast. Because this video has gained traction, many are falsely informed of the fighting tactics and methods in Ukraine.

Another large account, Sputnik, posts misleading information in the form of journalism, not only leading on the citizens of Russia but also harming perspectives of factual journalism and media. Twitter allows posts to be made from this account saying West carrying out massive propaganda to portray Russia as enemy.

A video of a man jumping from a plane in tactical gear has been reposted on TikTok to depict the war in Ukraine, but was found to be from an Instagram video made in 2015. The TikTok video was posted across multiple accounts, raking in over 200 thousand views and 12 thousand shares.

Russias long history of propaganda bled into its conflict in Ukraine. Putin released two pre-recorded videos on television on Feb. 21 and Feb. 24.

The first video was a long-winded rant on the genocide Ukrainians were enforcing upon Russian speakers in the country. In the second video, Putin makes his case for a war on the West. Both were filled with lies that sought to bring people to Russias side and create a propaganda storm across the world.

Twitter allowed for this to happen by missing clips of the video posted in which Putin calls Ukrainians Neo-Nazis and Oligarchic. These clips began to spread and caused #DestroyNato and #DestroyUkraine to trend on Twitter. Once these videos were shared, many impressionable users viewed skewed parts of a war cry. The Russo-Ukraine conflict is already hard for many to understand, so throwing in clips of a notorious leader calling out Nazis doesnt help any cause but Russias.

Twitter has recently added multiple new sources to combat misinformation. They began to do what is called data dumps, which are the release of misinformation found across the platform including the tweeters information in large data sets. But one crucial data point missing is who views the tweets.

Without this crucial part of the puzzle, Twitters viewer algorithm cannot be changed to block misinformation from at-risk viewers.

If Twitter and other social media sites want to continue to say they are actively disputing misinformation, they need to do more than ban large, official accounts. In a platform as large and open as Twitter, one single tweet can account for thousands of pieces of propaganda.

The International Rescue Committee allocates donations to help provide food, medical care and emergency supplies to refugee families in countries like Ukraine, Afghanistan, Syria and Yemen. If inclined, please donate to help Ukrainians with the fight against Russia.

Edited by Sarah Rubinstein | srubinstein@themaneater.com

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Propaganda in the age of no-nonsense Twitter - The Maneater

Is AI the Future of Sports? – Built In

He sees an opening on the left wing and immediately punishes them. After rushing down the side, he looks for his teammates in the center and quickly makes the cross in to finish it off!

Turn on any sports channel and youll hear something similar. Chances are you pictured Ronaldo or another star player running down a fresh pitch. In fact, this could actually describe a play from an artificial intelligence bot in a recent international tournament. Its time to shift our thinking as AI becomes the star player.

As we already know, using AI to enhance human athlete performance is becoming a pervasive practice. The next step for AI in sports is introducing AI players. In fact, we currently have AI agents smart enough to mimic high-level human tactics. They have the potential to revolutionize the sports industry while pushing the envelope regarding what AI can really do.

The immediate response from many people is that such a world will never come to be how could we enjoy watching machines? Many claim that playing against traditional AI can often be a repetitive and boring experience. Others cant imagine any joy from beating their machine opponents. To address this, lets start by examining why we like traditional sports and then outline how AI will come to meet these demands.

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Sports fan psychologists have nailed down eight core reasons why people love their sports.

Many of the motivations mentioned above arent unique to traditional sports. For example, getting together with friends and family to bond is about the people, not about the sport. As such, if the conditions are right, a similar variant involving AI could make inroads into the industry.

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The adoption of AI into the world of sports will be slower than other AI and software applications. Many of the motivations of sports relate to how others around an individual think and behave, so its not enough to change a few people; you need to change preconceptions around an entire industry to be truly effective. Here are four ways were already seeing AI infiltrate sports and how those applications appeal to our existing interest in sports:

Firstly, AI must be able to compete with humans for humans to get interested. We can already see AIs competitive edge with some of our most complex board games and e-sports. Here are some key cases:

These are all examples of deep learning AI, where strategies are not pre-programmed, but learned. Deep learning systems consist of up to billions of individual parameters which are layered together to create a complex network. Some goal is defined for the system, such as winning in a simple two-player game, which the system can begin to optimize toward. This optimization process happens through machine-based trial and error. The system plays millions of games with itself, each time learning about what works and what doesnt, and adjusting its parameters. After all these games, the system will have (hopefully) learned to play at or above its human counterparts, which is exactly what weve seen with the games mentioned above. This brings us to the wild world of e-sports.

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Our robotics capabilities are still somewhat limited, as seen in various robotic games such as soccer. It will still be some time before we can apply AI players to most traditional sports (though Boston Dynamics is getting there quickly). Instead, AI is likely to become most common in the world of e-sports.

E-sports is quickly becoming comparable (in terms of market share) to traditional sports. The industry has eclipsed $1 billion in revenue in 2021 and has a projected 15 percent year-over-year growth. The largest team in e-sports, Cloud 9, had a valuation of over $300 million, which equates to five percent of the worlds largest sports franchise, the Dallas Cowboys, at $7 billion. In prize pools, e-sports already exceed many, including the Golf Masters and Confederations Cup, at over $40 million.

The key thing to note is that e-sports are still relatively new. As opposed to traditional sports, some of which have franchises that are over a century old and have been big businesses for over 30 years, e-sports only began 25 years ago and the most popular game, Dota 2, was released just 10 years ago. The size of the prize pools contrasted with the young e-sports shows how quickly the industry has grown. Once this continued growth hits a critical mass and breaks into the mainstream, e-sports may provide similar family and group affiliation motivation that we see in traditional sports.

Consider that FIFA now runs an international tournament of e-sports for their very own games. For fans at home, the experience is largely the same, watching the same match on the same television with the same live commentary. Granted, the animation of the current games still has room for improvement, but it improves every year with new games. The rapidly advancing animations, along with the fact that theyre AI-generated, allow for far greater creativity. For example, you can watch in 3D and experience being in play or maybe even in the referee's shoes. The fact that the worlds most lucrative sport (soccer) is already moving into e-sports, so it wont be long before others follow.

There are other reasons e-sports make a good first choice for those interested in AI games, such as the ability to more efficiently train and improve AI. For a computer game, AI can play millions of games (e.g. 5 million games for AlphaGo) for training as opposed to traditional sports where AI must physically play the game to learn strategy and test its performance (and even this limitation is something OpenAI is working on).

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Right now, if someone asks you to watch two programs compete against each other inside another program, you might think theyre a little weird. This is a reasonable reaction, but like it or not, AI competitions are becoming more and more mainstream.

There are various competitions between AI that garner millions of viewers. Heres a list of various games and AI representations on YouTube which already have large audiences.

Overall, this is on the order of 100 million views on YouTube, which was only around two percent of one day of streaming(as of 2017). However, given the relatively small community this number is significant. Coupling the growth of AI bots with the growth in e-sports will create massive expansion in the genre as a whole. However, this growth wont be sustainable unless the AI stays interesting.

Once watching AI compete becomes common, well need to find new ways to keep viewers involved. In order to achieve this, its critical that we diversify our AI. People dont want to watch the same thing over and over again. As previously mentioned, one of the motivators for watching sport is entertainment which comes from the chance factor of not knowing who will walk out victorious on any given day. In order to achieve this, the agents must be capable of making various high-level, non-straightforward plays (which weve already seen with Dota 2 and Go, to name a few).

In fact, theres a common misconception that watching AI is a boring experience as they unintelligently copy humans or follow pre-described rulesets. Certainly that was true of machines of the past, but for many years now weve had AI that can act in creative and all-together astonishing ways.

One of the most interesting parts about Googles AlphaGo was its creativity and ways it played that game that were unexpected by humans. Along the same line, in the world of chess, when human players make moves that vary from the standard procedure, referees start to suspect players of using artificial intelligence systems as assistants. Put another way, in the game of chess, creativity is no longer the mark of a human, but that of a machine. Its the same in Go and as time passes, it will become true in other sports, too.

During the AlphaStar training, the Deepmind team observed that the bots adopted various good strategies. One might expect that the bots followed a specific strategy and got better and better at it in time. In fact, the bots could be clumped into various groups and each group had a different way to play the game (e.g. aggressive start, focus on a certain type of units, etc.). In a way, each bot had its own player personality. These personalities, with varied play-styles will keep AI sports both interesting and entertaining for human viewers.

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Once AI agents have become a regular part of our sporting experience, advancements in robotics will catch up, allowing them to play all of the games we usually play, not just for us, but with us. Soccer players will be able to practice against full teams of AI bots that are set to challenge them and help them grow. Theyll also be able to compete in human-robot leagues.

While human biology is relatively fixed, robotics will continue to advance. This means that sports can continue to evolve too. Imagine a game of soccer played at double the pace with a magnetic ball and speeds matching that of tennis? Sounds pretty exciting to me.

Finally, new games can be created that only AI can perfect. As previously mentioned, escape and aesthetic are two of the motivators for sports fans. Watching an AI empowered machine conquer and handle complex games will create a feeling of escape weve never experienced before.

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If the above story comes to be, there would naturally be significant impacts on sports and entertainment.

Sports organizations and related companies should start preparing for these changes before its too late. For the rest of us, likely not much will change. We cant hope to imitate Cristiano Ronaldos beautiful strikes or Federers impossible serves and I wont be able to match the feats of our robotic future athletes. If nothing else, it will be interesting to see how sports evolve in the wake of AI development. So for now, Ill sit back, pick a side and enjoy the game with my friends.

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Is AI the Future of Sports? - Built In

Bosses Are Finding New Ways to Drive Employee Satisfaction – The New York Times

From that understanding has sprung a recognition economy, which takes many forms: employee of the month plaques (and associated free parking spots), holiday chocolates, indoor food trucks. Those perks have become harder to distribute during the pandemic, with some people working from home, and many also trying to build more emotional distance between themselves and their jobs. But high turnover rates and low unemployment have reminded managers that their efforts to motivate workers are sorely needed, just when theyre toughest to execute.

So businesses are devising inventive methods of giving long-distance recognition. (Especially this week: Friday is National Employee Appreciation Day.) They are offering customized candles, shopping sprees, companywide shout-outs and quarterly days off. McKinsey recently hosted a thank-a-thon. O.C. Tanner, a software company, invites workers family members to Zoom meetings celebrating their achievements. Sunglass Huts employees sent 137,000 messages last year on its internal appreciation platform, Sunspired. The gifting company &Open asks its employees to send each other taco emojis over Slack, offering a lunch voucher to the five people with the most tacos at the end of the month.

The bottom-line benefits of workplace affirmation have perhaps never been so widely confirmed and creatively interpreted. But affirmation typically benefits workers who are more vocal about their accomplishments or those who are able to drop family or other personal obligations to pick up last-minute professional tasks. And the stakes of recognition arent just about improving peoples moods but about who gets advancement opportunities and the higher pay that comes with them.

Being affirmed and recognized can build confidence, said Mr. Brennan, who has advised clients to reward their highest-performing workers by inviting them to be C.E.O. for a Day, which means giving full-company presentations and even dressing like the chief executive. Ive seen it turn someone from being staff into a leader.

Executives who emphasize recognition have often learned from periods in their careers when they felt underappreciated. Take Evan Wilson, chief experience officer at Meritrust Credit Union in Wichita, Kan., who spent his earliest office years wondering why no one seemed to notice the extra hours he put in at a regional bank.

He now swears by Dr. White and Dr. Chapmans The 5 Languages of Appreciation in the Workplace, adapted from the love languages. Mr. Wilson asks all of his direct reports to take the assessment. And he responds by leaving his office door open for the employee whose language is quality time, for example. He also asks managers at the firm to rate themselves on how good they are at giving recognition, on a scale of one to ten, and suggests that those struggling rely on the languages for a boost.

The problem with appreciation is its like a bucket that leaks, Mr. Wilson said. Its the role of the leader to recognize Im the one who needs to bring that encouragement.

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Bosses Are Finding New Ways to Drive Employee Satisfaction - The New York Times

Trump yet to post on Truth Social since launch 2 weeks ago: reports – Business Insider

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Former President Donald Trump hasn't yet posted on Truth Social, the social-media app he launched late February after being barred by Twitter and other platforms, Axios reported.

The social-media app came out on February 20 but is currently only available for US iPhone users. Its launch was plagued with technical hiccups: Many people who downloaded the app say they were unable to create accounts or were placed on waitlists.

As of Wednesday, Trump hadn't posted at all since the platform launched, according to Axios. Popular Information's Judd Legum also said late Thursday that Trump had not added any posts.

Insider was unable to verify these claims because Truth Social is still restricting access to the app.

Axios pointed out that Trump discussed Russia's invasion with Ukraine with multiple news outlets, but has yet to post his thoughts on Truth Social, where they would have garnered more interest in the app.

The only post on Trump's account is from its beta trial in mid-February, when he told users: "Get Ready! Your favorite President will see you soon!"

Trump's account on the app had fewer than80,000 followers as of Wednesday, Axios reported. Trump had close to 90 million Twitter followers before his account was suspended.

Trump announced he was creating his own social-media app in October 2021 after he was banned from several social-media platforms including Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube in the aftermath of the January 6 Capitol siege. Trump has repeatedly criticized the platforms for removing his accounts, accusing them of censoring free speech.

Insider's Rosie Bradbury downloaded Truth Social the day after its launch, but was only able to create an account on her fifth attempt and has been on a wait list ever since. Truth Social said that "overwhelming demand" meant that that it had to limit how many people could create accounts.

"We have resolved the performance bottlenecks with new user registration and validation, and are working through the new user waitlist at an accelerated rate," Truth Social said in a status update Wednesday.

The app's user interface looks a lot like Twitter, with the ability to "follow" other users, three tabs on each user's page to view their posts, posts and replies, and shared media, and a cover photo and circular profile picture for each account.

Truth Social's logo is also remarkably similar to that of British company Trailar, which fixes solar panels on trucks. An executive at the company told Insider in late February that it was considering legal action against Truth Social because of the similarity of the two logos.

As of Friday morning, Truth Social sits at the No. 11 spot on the Apple App Store's social-media rankings. It has a 4.2-star rating based on 36,300 reviews.

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Trump yet to post on Truth Social since launch 2 weeks ago: reports - Business Insider