Can you become a VIP member of Truth Social for following Telegram channel? Fact Check

A number of engagement-farming schemes on messaging app Telegram are exploiting the launch of the new social media app Truth Social by claiming they can become VIP users by joining a Telegram channel.

Claim: You can become a VIP member of Truth Social by joining a specific Telegram channel.

FALSE

Posts like the one below are appearing on various Telegram channels claiming that users need to join the channel to become “VIP users” of Truth Social.

BREAKING: Truth Social will have its own VIP users. All of you that will join our Telegram channel and share this post will be automatically marked as a VIP user after confirmation.
Be part of the Team Trump-Truth Social is taking over.

However this is an example of engagement-farming. Engagement-farming (or “like-farming”) is the practise of luring social media engagement (e.g. likes, follows, shares) using deception or manipulation.

In this case, spammers are luring users to follow Telegram accounts by falsely claiming that by doing so they become VIP users once their accounts are confirmed on Trump-launched social media app Truth Social. In reality there is no such “VIP” feature on the app, and multiple Telegram channels have been using this same grift to lure social media users into following their channels.

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Truth Social has advertised no such VIP scheme via its official channels, let alone one which you can take advantage of simply by following arbitrary Telegram channels.

However this is a sign that the same scammers and spammers that have been trying to exploit social media apps such as Facebook and Twitter – often successfully – may be also turning their attention to Truth Social as well to see how the latest social app deals with curbing spam and scams.

Those who follow these spam Telegram channels will likely be exposed to more spam posts or even online scams.